SUMMARY:
-
FRANCIS' FIRST GENERAL AUDIENCE: FOLLOWING JESUS IS LEARNING TO GO
OUT OF OURSELVES
-
FRANCIS ASKS FOR HALT TO VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
-
POPE TO TAKE POSSESSION OF ROMAN CATHEDRA ON 7 APRIL
-
DOCUMENTARY OF ELECTION OF POPE FRANCIS
______________________________________
FRANCIS'
FIRST GENERAL AUDIENCE: FOLLOWING JESUS IS LEARNING TO GO OUT OF
OURSELVES
Vatican
City, 27 March 2013 (VIS) - “I am happy to welcome you to this, my
first general audience,” Pope Francis said to the thousands of
faithful who filled St. Peter's Square to participate in the Bishop
of Rome's first catechesis. “With gratitude and veneration,” he
continued, “I take up this 'witness' from the hands of my beloved
predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. After Easter we will return to the
catechesis of the Year of Faith. Today I want to focus on Holy Week.
We began this week—the heart of the entire liturgical year—during
which we accompany Jesus in his Passion, Death, and Resurrection,
with Palm Sunday.
“But
what,” the Pope asked, “does it mean for us to live Holy Week?
What does it mean to follow Jesus on his journey to Calvary, toward
the Cross and his Resurrection? On his earthly mission, Jesus walked
the streets of the Holy Land. He called 12 simple persons to stay
with him, sharing his path and continuing his mission … He spoke to
everyone, without distinction: to the great and the humble ... the
powerful and the weak. He brought God's mercy and forgiveness. He
healed, consoled, understood. He gave hope. He brought to all the
presence of God who cares for every man and woman as a good father
and a good mother cares for each of their children.”
“God,”
Francis emphasized, “didn't wait for us to come to him. It was He
who came to us. … Jesus lived the everyday reality of the most
common persons. … He cried when he saw Martha and Mary suffering
for the death of their brother Lazarus … He also experienced the
betrayal of a friend. In Christ, God has given us the assurance that
He is with us, in our midst. … Jesus has no home because his home
is the people, us ourselves. His mission is to open the doors to God
for all, to be the presence of God's love.”
“During
Holy Week we are living the apex … of this plan of love that runs
throughout the history of the relationship between God and humanity.
Jesus enters into Jerusalem to take the final step in which his
entire existence is summed up. He gives himself completely, keeping
nothing for himself, not even his life. At the Last Supper, with his
friends, He shares the bread and distributes the chalice 'for us'.
The Son of God offers himself to us; puts his Body and his Blood in
our hands to be always with us … And in the Garden of the Mount of
Olives, as at the trial before Pilate, he makes no resistance, but
gives himself.”
“Jesus
doesn't live this love that leads to sacrifice passively or as his
fatal destiny. He certainly didn't hide his deep human turmoil when
faced with violent death, but he entrusted himself to the Father with
full confidence ... to show his love for us. Each one of us can say,
'Jesus loved me and gave himself up for me'.”
“What
does this mean for us? It means that this path is also mine, also
yours, also our path. Living Holy Week, following Jesus not only with
moved hearts, means learning to come out of ourselves … in order to
meet others, in order to go toward the edges of our existence, to
take the first steps towards our brothers and sisters, especially
those who are farthest from us, those who are forgotten, those who
need understanding, consolation, and assistance.”
“Living
Holy Week is always going deeper into God's logic, into the logic of
the Cross, which is not first and foremost a logic of sorrow and
death but one of love and the self giving that brings life. It is
entering into the logic of the Gospel. Following, accompanying
Christ, staying with him when he demands that we 'go out': out of
ourselves, out of a tired and habitual way of living the faith, out
of the temptation of locking ourselves in our own schemes that wind
up closing the horizon of God's creative action. God went out of
himself in order to come amongst us … to bring us the mercy …
that saves and gives hope. And we, if we want to follow and remain
with him, cannot be satisfied with staying in the sheep pen with the
ninety-nine sheep. We have to 'go out', to search for the little lost
sheep, the furthest one, with him.”
“Often,”
he observed, “we settle for some prayers, a distracted and
infrequent Sunday Mass, some act of charity, but we don't have this
courage to 'go out' and bring Christ. We are a little like St. Peter.
As soon as Jesus talks of his passion, death, and resurrection, of
giving himself and love for all, the Apostle takes him aside and
scolds him. What Jesus is saying shakes up his plans, seems
unacceptable, the safe certainty he had constructed, his idea of the
Messiah, in difficulty. And Jesus … addressing some of the harshest
words of the Gospel to Peter, says: 'Get behind me, Satan. You are
thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.' God thinks
mercifully. God thinks like a father who awaits the return of his son
and goes out to meet him, sees him coming when he is still afar … a
sign that he was awaiting him every day from the terrace of his
house. God thinks like the Samaritan who doesn't pass by the
unfortunate man, pitying him or looking away, but rather assisting
him without asking anything in return, without asking if he was a Jew
or a Samaritan, rich or poor.”
“Holy
Week,” Francis concluded, “is a time of grace that the Lord gives
us to open the doors of our hearts, of our lives, of our parishes—so
many closed parishes are a shame—of our movements and associations,
to 'go out' and meet others, to draw near them and bring them the
light and joy of our faith. To always go out with the love and
tenderness of God!”
After
the catechesis and the summaries in different languages that the
Gospel readers gave, the Pope greeted all the groups in Italian. Also
in Italian, he addressed, among other groups, the university students
participating in the international UNIV Congress sponsored by the
Prelature of Opus Dei, thanking them for their prayers and affection
for the Pope. “With your presence in the university world, each one
of you carries out what St. Josemaria Escriva wished for: 'It is in
the midst of the most material things of the earth that we must
sanctify ourselves, serving God and all humankind'.”
FRANCIS
ASKS FOR HALT TO VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Vatican
City, 27 March 2013 (VIS) – After the catechesis of this morning's
General Audience, the Holy Father called for an immediate end to the
violence in the Central African Republic.
“I
am attentively following what has been happening in these hours in
the Central African Republic and I wish to ensure all those who are
suffering—especially the relatives of the victims, the wounded, and
those who have lost their homes and been forced to flee—of my
prayers. I call for an immediate halt to the violence and looting,
and that a political solution to the crisis may be reached as soon as
possible so that peace and harmony may be restored in that dear
country, which has, for too long, been marked by conflict and
division.”
POPE
TO TAKE POSSESSION OF ROMAN CATHEDRA ON 7 APRIL
Vatican
City, 27 March 2013 (VIS) – The solemn celebration of the Eucharist
during which Francis will take possession of the cathedra of the
Bishop of Rome will take place in the Lateran Basilica on 7 April,
the Second Sunday of Easter, or Divine Mercy Sunday, at 5:30pm.
DOCUMENTARY
OF ELECTION OF POPE FRANCIS
Vatican
City, 26 March 2013 (VIS) – “Francesco – Elezione di un Papa
che viene dalla fine del mondo” (Francis: Election of a Pope from
the Ends of the Earth) is the title of the documentary from Vatican
Television, made in collaboration with the Officina della
Comunicazione (OC) and the Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.
The DVD will be distributed as a supplement to the Friday, 2 April
edition of the newspaper.
The
documentary registers the events following Pope Benedict XVI's
renunciation of the papacy, the days of the Sede Vacante, and the
conclave that brought the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio
as the new Pope. Through images and previously unpublished interviews
with four cardinals—Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the
Basilica of St. Peter; Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop
of Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of
the Pontifical Council for Culture; and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean
of the College of Cardinals—it reconstructs the most important
stages of this period, culminating in the meeting of the two pontiffs
this past Saturday, 23 March, in Castel Gandolfo.
The
DVD supplement will cost 10.90 euro. Put together in record time, it
was presented this morning in the Press Office of the Holy See by
Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president of the Pontifical Council
for Social Communications; Msgr. Dario Edoardo Vigano, director of
Vatican Television; and Dr. Ferruccio De Bortoli, editor of Il
Corriere della Sera.
You
can find more information at: www.visnews.org
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news items contained in the Vatican Information Service may be used,
in part or in their entirety, by quoting the source:
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