We live in a society that encourages us to discard the habit of recognizing and assuming our responsibilities: It is always others who make mistakes. It is always others who are immoral. It is always someone else’s fault, never our own.
– Pope Francis, The Name of God Is Mercy
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September 17, 2020
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Everyone is important in God’s eyes, everyone can transform a part of the world polluted by human voracity into the good reality willed by the Creator. #SeasonOfCreation
Today, the nature that surrounds us is no longer admired, but “devoured”. We must return to contemplation; so as not to be distracted by a thousand useless things, we must find silence; for the heart not to become sick, we must be still. #SeasonOfCreation
To contemplate and to care: these are two attitudes that show the way to correct and rebalance our relationship as human beings with creation. #SeasonOfCreation #GeneralAudience vatican.va/content/f…
Contemplation, which leads us to an attitude of care, is not a question of looking at nature from the outside, as if we were not immersed in it. But we are inside nature, we are part of nature. #SeasonOfCreation #GeneralAudience
As many spiritual masters have taught us, heaven, earth, sea, and every creature have an iconic capacity or mystical capacity to bring us back to the Creator and to communion with creation. #SeasonOfCreation #GeneralAudience
Climate restoration is of utmost importance for the Earth's future. Thus, I invite all nations to adopt more ambitious national targets to reduce emissions. #SeasonOfCreation
The Sorrowful Virgin whose pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus now grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power. #SeasonOfCreation
The revelation of God’s love for us seems madness. Every time that we look at the cross, we find this love. The crucifix is truly the great book of God’s love. #ExaltationOfTheCross
In recent days, a series of fires have devastated the refugee camp of Moria on the Island of Lesbos. I express my solidarity and closeness to all the victims of these dramatic events.
How much suffering, how many wounds, how many wars could be avoided if forgiveness and mercy were the style of our life! #GospelOfTheDay
In the #GospelOfTheDay (MT 18:21-35), Jesus exhorts us to open ourselves courageously to the strength of forgiveness, because not everything in life can be resolved with justice: there's a need for merciful love.
Nature is filled with words of love, but how can we listen to them amid constant noise, and interminable and nerve-wracking distractions? #SeasonOfCreation
As believers, we do not look at the world from without but from within, conscious of the bonds with which the Father has linked us to all beings. #SeasonOfCreation
Today, in the tragedy of a #pandemic, in the face of the many false securities that have now crumbled, in the face of so many hopes betrayed, in the sense of abandonment that weighs upon our hearts, Jesus says to each one of us: “Courage, open your heart to my love”.
The common good requires everyone’s participation. If everyone contributes his or her part, and if no one is left out, we can regenerate good relationships on the communitarian, national and international level and even in harmony with the environment. #LaudatoSì
To love everyone, including enemies, is difficult – I would say it is even an art! But an art that can be learned and improved. True love, that makes us fruitful and free, is always expansive and inclusive. This love cares, heals and does good. #GeneralAudience
A virus that does not recognise barriers, borders, or cultural or political distinctions must be faced with a love without barriers, borders or distinctions. #GeneralAudience vatican.va/content/f…
The Christian response to the pandemic and to the consequent socio-economic crisis is based on love, above all, love of God who always precedes us (see 1 Jn 4:19). When we welcome this divine love, then we can respond similarly. #GeneralAudience
Mary, the Mother who cared for Jesus, cares with maternal affection and pain also for this wounded world.
Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise. #SeasonOfCreation #LaudatoSì
At times it takes greater love to rehabilitate a brother or sister. In the #GospelOfTheDay (Mt 18:15-20) Jesus invites us to put them in God's hands: only the Father can show a greater love than that of all brothers and sisters put together.
Mother Teresa, tireless worker of charity, pray for us, so that our criterion for action might be gratuitous love, offered freely to everyone without distinction of language, culture, race, or religion.
During this #SeasonOfCreation, may we be attentive to the rhythms of creation. The world was made to communicate the glory of God, to help us to discover the Lord of all in its beauty, and to return to Him.
Today we hear the voice of creation admonishing us to return to our rightful place in the natural created order – to remember that we are part of this interconnected web of life, not its masters. #SeasonOfCreation
I invite everyone to join in a universal day of prayer and fasting for Lebanon, on 4 September. I also invite our brothers and sisters of other religious confessions to join in this initiative in whatever way they deem best. w2.vatican.va/conten…
As a human family we have our common origin in God. We dwell in a common home, the garden-planet where God placed us. But when we forget all this, our social fabric is weakened and the environment deteriorates. #GeneralAudience
The current pandemic has highlighted our interdependence: we are all linked to each other, for better or for worse. Therefore, to come out of this crisis better than before, we have to do so together, all of us, in solidarity. #GeneralAudience
A #JubileeForTheEarth is a time to restore the original harmony of creation and to heal strained human relationships. #SeasonOfCreation w2.vatican.va/conten…
A #JubileeForTheEarth is a time to return to God, our loving Creator. We cannot live in harmony with creation if we are not at peace with the Creator who is the source and origin of all things.
A #JubileeForTheEarth is a good time to remember creation’s original vocation to exist as a community of love. We exist only in relationships: with God the Creator, with our brothers and sisters, and with all of God’s creatures within our common home.
The #JubileeForTheEarth calls us to think once again of our fellow human beings, especially the poor and the most vulnerable. We are asked to re-appropriate God’s original and loving plan of creation as a common heritage. w2.vatican.va/conten…
Today marks the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. From now until October 4th we will celebrate the #JubileeForTheEarth with our Christian brothers and sisters of various Churches and traditions. #SeasonOfCreation
I follow with concern the tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean area and I appeal for constructive dialogue and respect for international law to resolve the conflicts that threaten the peace of the peoples of that region.
For Peter and the other disciples – but for us too! - the cross is a 'hindrance', whereas Jesus considers the 'hindrance' escaping the cross, which would mean avoiding the Father's will, the mission that the Father has entrusted to Him for our salvation. #GospelOfTheDay
Putting the paschal mystery at the center of our lives means feeling compassion towards the wounds of the crucified Christ present in the many innocent victims of wars and violence, in attacks on life, in environmental disasters, and in poverty.
Trust in the Lord and make an effort to enter into his plans, accepting that His salvation can reach us in ways that may be different from what we expect.
We must always have this “holy restlessness” in our hearts, in the search for the true good who is God. Let us help others feel the thirst for God. He gives peace and happiness to our hearts.
If we take care of the goods that the Creator gives us, if we put what we possess in common in such a way that no one would be lacking, then we would truly inspire hope to regenerate a more healthy and equal world. #GeneralAudience
After the crisis, will we continue with this economic system of social injustice and depreciating care for the environment, of creation, of our common home? Let’s think about this. #GeneralAudience vatican.va/content/f…
The root of every spiritual error is believing ourselves to be righteous. To consider ourselves righteous is to leave God, the only righteous one, out in the cold.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico. I express my solidarity with the families of the victims who today are still asking for truth and justice. The Lord will hold us to account for all of the migrants who have fallen on their journey of Hope.
To pray is to allow yourself to be looked at by God without illusions, excuses, or justifications. Because from the devil come darkness and lies, from God come light and truth.
Let’s not forget the victims of the coronavirus. So much suffering, so many people who lost their lives; and so many volunteers, doctors, nurses, sisters, priests, who also lost their lives. Let us remember the families who have suffered because of this.
In the #GospelOfTheDay, we hear Jesus’s question directed to each one of us: “And you, who do you say I am?”. It is a question of giving not a theoretical answer, but one that involves faith, that is, life, because faith is life!
God does not love you because you behave well. He loves you, plain and simple. His love is unconditional; it does not depend on you.
God has no need to be defended by anyone and does not want His name to be used to terrorize people. We call upon everyone to stop using religions to incite hatred, violence, extremism and blind fanaticism. #HumanFraternity
Amid so many passing things, the Lord wants to remind us of what will remain forever: love, because “God is love”.
May the Holy Spirit make us grow constantly in knowledge of God so that we might spread His love and His truth in the world.
The response to the pandemic is dual: we need to find a cure for this small which has brought the whole world to its knees and we must cure a larger virus, that of social injustice. #GeneralAudience
Wealth can force us to build walls. Jesus, instead, invites His disciples to transform goods and riches into relationships, because people are worth more than things, they are more valuable than any riches we possess.
It is not the wealthy who bear fruit in life, but those who build and maintain many friendships through various "riches", namely, through the various gifts God has given them.
If we present our poverty to the Lord, with an existence marked by tears and suffering, but with the tenacious faith of the Canaanite woman (see Mt 15:21-28) then the Lord cannot but welcome our prayer with His paternal eyes and heart. #GospelOfTheDay
Let us invoke the intercession of the “Mother of hope” for all the situations in the world that are most in need of hope, in particular for the population of the northern region of Nigeria, victim of violence and terrorist attacks.
With God, nothing is lost! In Mary, the goal has been reached and we have before our eyes the reasons why we journey: not to gain the things here below, which are fleeting, but the homeland above, which is for ever.
Hope needs patience, the patience of knowing that we sow, but it is God who gives growth.
When we pray, God expects that we also be mindful of those who do not think as we do, those who have slammed the door in our face, those whom we find it hard to forgive. Only prayer unlocks chains, only prayer paves the way to unity.
The coronavirus is not the only disease to be fought, but rather, the pandemic has shed light on broader social ills. One of these is a distorted view of the person, a perspective that ignores the dignity and relational character of the person. #GeneralAudience
God does not choose us because of our “goodness”, but precisely because we are and we feel small.
