Inflame Our Hearts

Increase our faith in you, O Lord, 

and let the light of the Holy Spirit inflame our hearts always.

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In Pope Francis’ homily on Pentecost, he began by focusing on Sunday’s readings saying that, “the word of God, tells us that the Spirit is at work in individuals and communities filled with the Spirit.

Expanding on this theme of the Spirit, Pope Francis said that, in the Gospel, Jesus promises his disciples that, when he has returned to the Father, the Holy Spirit will come to guide them into all the truth. Indeed he calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of truth”.

The  Holy Father underlined that the gift of the Holy Spirit “has been bestowed upon the Church and upon each one of us, so that we may live lives of genuine faith and active charity, that we may sow the seeds of reconciliation and peace.”

Concluding his homily, Pope Francis prayed that strengthened by the Spirit and his many gifts, we would be able uncompromisingly to battle against sin and corruption, devoting ourselves with patient perseverance to the works of justice and peace.

For more information please visit:  http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-the-gift-of-the-holy-spirit-renews-th

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     I offer cordial greetings and encouragement to the participants of the Second International Conference on Women, meeting in Rome from 22 to 24 May 2015.  This Conference, organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in cooperation with the World Union of Women’s Catholic Organizations and the World Women’s Alliance for Life and Family, has for its theme Women and the Post-2015 Development Agenda: The Challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals 

            I was pleased to learn of this timely initiative, which highlights the concerns of Catholic women’s organizations in the international discussions leading to the drafting of a new Post-2015 Development Agenda at the level of the United Nations.  Many women and men wish to contribute to this Agenda, as they work to defend and promote life, and to combat the poverty, the forms of enslavement and the many injustices which women of all ages, and throughout the world, too often experience.

            Women face a variety of challenges and difficulties in various parts of the world.  In the West, at times they still experience discrimination in the workplace; they are often forced to choose between work and family; they not infrequently suffer violence in their lives as fiancées, wives, mothers, sisters and grandmothers.  In poor and developing countries, women bear the heaviest burdens: it is they who travel many miles in search of water, who too often die in childbirth, who are kidnapped for sexual exploitation or forced into marriages at a young age or against their will.  At times they are even denied the right to life simply for being female.  All of these problems are reflected in the proposals for the Post-2015 Development Agenda presently being discussed in the United Nations.

            Issues relating to life are intrinsically connected to social questions.  When we defend the right to life, we do so in order that each life – from conception to its natural end – may be a dignified life, one free from the scourge of hunger and poverty, of violence and persecution.  Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate, highlighted how the Church “forcefully maintains this link between life ethics and social ethics, fully aware that a society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized” (No. 15).

            I encourage you, who are engaged in defending the dignity of women and promoting their rights, to allow yourselves to be constantly guided by the spirit of humanity and compassion in the service of your neighbour.  May your work be marked first and foremost by professional competence, without self-interest or superficial activism, but with generous dedication.  In this way you will manifest the countless God-given gifts which women have to offer, encouraging others to promote sensitivity, understanding and dialogue in settling conflicts big and small, in healing wounds, in nurturing all life at every level of society, and in embodying the mercy and tenderness which bring reconciliation and unity to our world.  All this is part of that “feminine genius” of which our society stands in such great need.

            With renewed gratitude for your work, I send cordial good wishes for the Conference that you have organized and whose theme is so urgent.  I pray for all of you, and I ask you to pray for me and my intentions.  To you and your loved ones, I willingly impart my Apostolic Blessing.

Pope Francis

From the Vatican, 22 May 2015

For more information please visit: http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-letter-to-cardinal-turkson

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Merciful Like the Father

We want to live in the light of the word of the Lord: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (cf. Lk 6:36)….

This Holy Year will commence on the next Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception  (8 December 2015) and will conclude on Sunday, 20 November 2016, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe and living face of the Father's mercy.

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The logo and the motto together provide a fitting summary of what the Jubilee Year is all about. The motto Merciful Like the Father (taken from the Gospel of Luke, 6:36) serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive and to give love and forgiveness without measure (cfr. Lk 6:37-38). The logo – the work of Jesuit Father Marko I. Rupnik – presents a small summa theologiae of the theme of mercy. In fact, it represents an image quite important to the early Church: that of the Son having taken upon his shoulders the lost soul demonstrating that it is the love of Christ that brings to completion the mystery of his incarnation culminating in redemption. The logo has been designed in such a way so as to express the profound way in which the Good Shepherd touches the flesh of humanity and does so with a love with the power to change one’s life. One particular feature worthy of note is that while the Good Shepherd, in his great mercy, takes humanity upon himself, his eyes are merged with those of man. Christ sees with the eyes of Adam, and Adam with the eyes of Christ. Every person discovers in Christ, the new Adam, one’s own humanity and the future that lies ahead, contemplating, in his gaze, the love of the Father.

The scene is captured within the so called mandorla (the shape of an almond), a figure quite important in early and medieval iconography, for it calls to mind the two natures of Christ, divine and human. The three concentric ovals, with colors progressively lighter as we move outward, suggest the movement of Christ who carries humanity out of the night of sin and death. Conversely, the depth of the darker color suggests the impenetrability of the love of the Father who forgives all. 

© Copyright Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelization, Vatican State. All rights reserved.

For more information please visit:

http://www.news.va/en/news/presentation-of-the-extraordinary-jubilee-of-mercy

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Prayer for the Jubilee of Mercy

Lord Jesus Christ,

you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,

and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.

Show us your face and we will be saved.

Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;

the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;

made Peter weep after his betrayal,

and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.

Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:

“If you knew the gift of God!”

You are the visible face of the invisible Father,

of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:

let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.

You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness

in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:

let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.

Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing,

so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord,

and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor,

proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,

and restore sight to the blind.  

We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy,

you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Amen.

© Copyright Pontifical Council for the Promotion of New Evangelization, Vatican State. All rights reserved.

For more information please visit:

http://www.iubilaeummisericordiae.va/content/gdm/en.html

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