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Pope Mass: a humble heart knows God, theology is done on one’s knees
Those who study the mystery of God are brought to their knees because God reveals more to a humble heart. Those were the Pope’s words during his Homily at Mass Tuesday morning at the Casa Santa Martha. The eyes of the poor, said Pope Francis, are most likely to see Christ and, through him, to see the face of God. Others who claim to fathom this mystery with the resources of intelligence must first get down on their “knees”, in an act of humility , otherwise “they will not understand anything.” During his Homily the Pope focused on the Gospel of St Luke from the morning’s liturgy, reflecting on Christ’s relationship to the Father, both praising and thanking him. “He ...

Pope: God lives in big cities. We must be there with Him.
Pope Francis has urged bishops and pastoral care workers to take up the challenge of bringing the Gospel into big cities with a profound change of attitude and renewed committment. In a message to participants of the International Pastoral Congress on the World’s Big Cities, held in Barcelona this week, the Pope issued an encouragement to reflect creatively on the way they face the task of evangelization in great urban centers that are in increasing expansion, and in which everyone needs to feel the closeness and mercy of God. Delivering his message to a group of Cardinals and bishops from big cities across the world whom he received in audience on Thursday morning, Pope Francis began with a reflection on ...

Pope at Santa Marta: Everything for the Lord and others
When the Church is humble and poor, then “it is faithful” to Christ, giving all it has for the Lord and others, leaving nothing for itself said Pope Francis at morning Mass in  Casa Santa Marta Monday. Pope Francis based his reflections on the Gospel of the Day which recounts the episode of the poor widow who gives all that she has – two small coins or mites – to the Temple treasury, while the rich made offerings from their surplus wealth under the gaze of Jesus. Pope Francis said the Gospel captures two tendencies always present in the history of the Church. The Church tempted by vanity and the “poor Church”, which – he says – “must have no ...

Pope Francis: Marriage and the family are in crisis
(Vatican Radio) On Monday, Pope Francis addressed a Colloquium being held on the theme “The Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage.” The Holy Father began his address by dwelling on the word “complementarity”: “a precious word, with multiple meanings.” Although complementarity can refer “situations where one of two things adds to, completes, or fulfills a lack in the other” it also means much more than that. Christians, he said, “find its deepest meaning in the first Letter to the Corinthians where Saint Paul tells us that the Spirit has endowed each of us with different gifts so that-just as the human body’s members work together for the good of the whole-everyone’s gifts can work together for the benefit of ...

Prayer, Purgatory and All Souls’ Day
When I was a Protestant, there were things I thought I knew about the Catholic Church, things I knew I didn’t know about the Catholic Church, but didn’t want to learn, and then a box marked, “Everything Else”. During my conversion process, that “Everything Else” box grew bigger and bigger as I slowly acquainted myself with this strange new religion that familiarity had convinced me I knew everything about, but pride had kept me ignorant of.  One of the most beautiful, exotic jewels I discovered in that box was All Souls Day. Growing up Presbyterian, everyone went to Heaven.  And they went there immediately upon the death rattle.  It wasn’t that there was an unshakable certainty in each souls’ eternal reward, it was just that ...

Pope tells bishops to be guardians of memory and hope
Pope Francis told Korean Bishops to be guardians of memory and guardians of hope. Speaking to his brother bishops on the first day of his apostolic journey to the Republic of Korea, Pope Francis recalled the seeds sown by Korean martyrs which, he said, “brought forth an abundant harvest of grace in this land”, and called on them to guard the hope of the Gospel by “keeping alive the flame of holiness, fraternal charity and missionary zeal within the Church’s communion.” The Church in Korea, the Pope said, is esteemed for its role in the spiritual and cultural life of the nation and its strong missionary impulse, and – he continued – “being guardians of memory means more than remembering ...

How to Save Catholic Schools
It’s commencement season and tens of thousands of students are graduating from inner-city Catholic elementary schools. As decades of empirical research have shown, these kids have a better chance of successfully completing high school and college, and are better prepared to life-after-the-classroom, than their peers attending government schools. These inner-city Catholic schools are “public schools” in the best sense of the term; they’re open to the public (not just to Catholics), and they serve a genuine public interest, the empowerment of the youthful poor. There is ample research to demonstrate inner-city Catholic schools’ educational excellence, going back to the pioneering Coleman/Greeley studies in the 1970s. Now comes an even more comprehensive claim about the positive impact of these schools: for, ...

How I met Pope Francis
During the week before the Canonization of John Paul II and John XXIII, members of Shalom Community from many countries, took part in a pilgrimage to Rome where they shared an unforgettable experience of being part of the Holy Church’s family and also as one big family Shalom. Among many other pilgrims, some of them had the providential opportunity to meet Pope Francis face to face. Each of these encounters was a great joy to, as a Community, once again renew the love and fidelity for the Holy Father and to offer their lives in the service of Mother Church. This is how they met the Pope: Jullierme Oliveira, Celibate: “When he saw the name ‘shalom’ he promptly opened a ...

Forgive One Another … But How?
What was she to do? Brenda’s husband of three years abandoned her two years ago and today she received the divorce notice. “I don’t want to hate him for the rest of my life,” she said of Nathan. “I want to forgive him, but I don’t know how.” Brenda is typical of most of us in not knowing the path to forgiving. We have been hurt, we realize that our resentment could destroy us, and so we want to forgive. We even know as Catholics that Jesus, in Matthew: 6, asks us to forgive. And yet, because the Bible is not primarily a psychological document, it does not give us step-by-step instructions of how to accomplish this challenging task of ...

Who will have lunch with Pope Francis?
JERUSALEM – An interview with Bishop William Shomali, Auxiliary Bishop of Jerusalem, about the families who will have lunch with Pope Francis in Bethlehem after Mass in Manger Square. 1 – Why did the Pope choose to lunch with Christian families? What is his reason for doing so?   Pope Francis wants to spend a little time with the poor families in the Bethlehem and their children to listen to them, permitting them to feel his closeness and tenderness. He did not want to have lunch with the cardinals, bishops and politicians, but with poor families. It took time to understand the reasons for this gesture. It really makes the Pope admired: how Jesus wants to stay close to the ...
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