Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Pope Francis Speaks Against Walls - February 8, 2017
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis repeated his appeal for people to build bridges of understanding, not walls as he marked a feast day of a Sudanese immigrant amid a global uproar over the Trump administration's attempts to impose a travel ban on seven mostly Muslim countries.
The pope didn't refer to President Donald Trump in his comments. But at the end of his audience, he noted that Wednesday marked both the church's day of reflection for young victims of human trafficking and coincidentally the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita…
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Pope prays for persecuted Muslims, calls for bridges not walls - February 8, 2017
ROME-Marking the Catholic Church’s International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, Pope Francis asked the thousands gathered in Rome for his weekly audience to remember the Rohingya Muslim minority being persecuted in Myanmar.
ROME-Marking the Catholic Church’s International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, Pope Francis asked the thousands gathered in Rome for his weekly audience to remember the Rohingya Muslim minority being persecuted in Myanmar.
“And speaking of migrants, driven out, exploited … I would like to pray today with you in a special way for our brothers and sisters Rohingya,” he said on Wednesday.
“They are driven out of Myanmar, going from one place to another because they’re not wanted. They’re good people, peaceful! They aren’t Christians, they’re good [people]. They’re brothers and sisters of ours.”
When Francis first spoke about the Rohingya the room remained quiet, evidencing perhaps that amidst news coming from the United States or the Middle East, little to nothing has been said about them.
“The pain they suffer … they have been tortured, killed, simply because they carry forth their tradition, their Muslim faith,” he said, before leading the thousands who were in the Paul VI hall in prayer…
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Pope Francis: Christians must be living signs of hope
February 8, 2017
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday encouraged the faithful to strive to be living signs of hope for the entire human family.
Speaking during the weekly General Audience in the Paul VI Hall, the Pope continued his catechesis on Christian hope, conceding that especially in times of darkness and difficulty, hope is no easy virtue.
Quoting from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians he pointed out that Paul encourages the members of the early Church to sustain one another in hope through mutual prayer and practical concern for those in need.
“We must help one another, he said, in the many needs of everyday life, but also when we are in need of hope.” And he referred in particular to those who have the responsibility of providing pastoral guidance, whom he said, on the one hand have the force and the strength of a divine ministry, but on the other are in need of the respect, the comprehension and the support of all.
Underlining the fact that Christian hope is intensely personal yet also communitarian, the Pope said that help and support must be given especially to the poor, the weak in faith, the suffering and those tempted to despair.
He said that no one can learn to hope on their own, because Christian hope needs to be “embodied” in a community of mutual support and loving concern…
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"Who am I to judge?”
...the entirely mind-blowing fact of
a supposedly infallible pope asking this question at all...
Pope Francis: The Times They Are A-Changin’ - January 28, 2014
Inside the Pope's gentle revolution
By Mark Binelli
Brief excerpt:
…While much of this sounds like wishful thinking, they also have a point: The pope's tonal changes don't necessarily signal a wild swing from tradition. Francis has ruled out the ordination of women, for example, and he still considers abortion an evil. But those obsessed with contextualizing Francis would do well to take a look at the impromptu press conference he granted last summer to gathered Vaticanisti (members of the Vatican press corps) during the flight back from a trip to Rio. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, told me he'd expected the press conference would go about 20 minutes. It lasted for nearly 90, and ended up including the pope's famous "Who am I to judge?" response, which is normally the only part of the exchange that's quoted. But reading the full transcript or, better yet, watching longer excerpts on YouTube helps to convey the true context.
A reporter asks Francis, who is standing at the head of the aisle, about the existence of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican. Francis begins by making a joke, saying he hasn't yet run into anyone with a special gay identification card. But then his face becomes serious and, gesturing for emphasis, he says it's important to distinguish between lobbies, which are bad – "A lobby of the greedy, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of Masons, so many lobbies!" he says later in the press conference – and individual gay people who are well- intentioned and seeking God. It's while speaking to the latter point that he makes the "Who am I to judge?" remark, and this part of the video is really
worth watching, because, aside from the entirely mind-blowing fact of a supposedly infallible pope asking this question at all, his answer is never really translated properly. What he actually says is, "Mah, who am I to judge?" In Italian, mah is an interjection with no exact English parallel, sort of the verbal equivalent of an emphatic shrug. My dad's use of mah most often precedes his resignedly pouring another splash of grappa into his coffee. The closest translation I can come up with is "Look, who the hell knows?" If you watch the video, Francis even pinches his fingers together for extra Italian emphasis. Then he flashes a knowing smirk…
This story is from the
February 13th, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone
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Crossing the Red Sea
by hiraku-kun
Photoby hiraku-kun
Four cardinals openly challenge Francis over 'Amoris Laetitia’
By Joshua J. McElwee - Nov. 14, 2016
…ROME Four semi-retired cardinals have publicly questioned Pope Francis' most recent teachings on family life, issuing an open letter to the pontiff with five yes or no questions about how he understands church teaching following the publication of his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia*.
While the cardinals say they are writing the note in "an act of justice and charity" to allow the pope to "dispel all ambiguity" about his exhortation, they take a defiant tone and pit Francis' document against others written by his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Publication of such an open challenge to a Catholic pontiff from some of his cardinals, who normally act as the pope's staunchest defenders, is exceedingly rare…
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Pope Francis dismisses critics of his teachings
By David Gibson- Nov. 18, 2016
Brief excerpts:
Vatican City -- Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”
The pontiff’s lengthy interview in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian hierarchy, was published Friday and followed days of news coverage of demands by four hard-line cardinals who have grave concerns about Francis’ approach.
The four say that focusing on ministering to people in their particular circumstances is eroding the church’s doctrinal absolutes and that Francis must dispel any ambiguities or face serious consequences.
The four critics, led by U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a Rome-based prelate and longtime opponent of the pontiff’s policies, had written privately to Francis in September.
They asked the pontiff to state whether passages in a landmark document on ministering to families that he had issued in April could be interpreted to allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion in some cases. On Monday, the cardinals went public with the letter because they learned that Francis was not going to respond to their demands that he answer five specific questions about the document, an exhortation called Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love."
The cardinals said he had to answer their questions in order to clear up their doubts about whether the document undermined the church’s teaching on sin and the permanence of marriage.
Then in an interview published Tuesday in the National Catholic Register, Burke raised the stakes by saying that if Francis did not offer a clarification, the next step would be to make “a formal act of correction of a serious error" — a phrase that some believe is tantamount to accusing the pope of heresy.
Avvenire’s interview with Francis focused largely on ecumenism and Catholicism’s relations with other churches…
…Asked about critics who accuse the pope of “Protestantizing" the Catholic church — an objection often raised by conservative Catholics in the U.S. — Francis said, “I don’t lose sleep over it."
He insisted that he is following the model of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s that set the church on a path to internal reform and greater engagement with the world.
“As for opinions of others," he said, “we always have to distinguish the spirit in which they are given. When not given in bad faith, they help with the way forward. Other times you see right away that the critics pick bits from here and there to justify a pre-existing viewpoint; they are not honest, they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.” …
... Read complete article & Related stories https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/pope-francis-dismisses-critics-his-teachings
Pope Francis denounces growing 'demonization' of enemies, outsiders David Gibson - Nov. 19, 2016 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/11/19/pope-francis-denounces-growing-demonization-enemies-outsiders/94123474/
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Each year the
Jindo Sea parts to reveal
a narrow strip of land, pictured above,
that connects two South Korean islands.
JINDO, South Jolla Province
Like Moses' Red Sea miracle depicted in the Bible,
the sea at Jindo divides into two,
revealing a pathway in the sea.
Hoards of people line up to walk the seaway during
the 31st Jindo Sea Way Festival at Jingo,
South Jeolla Province.
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Exodus 14:1-31
Crossing the Red Sea
Then the Lord said to Moses: Tell the Israelites to turn back and camp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall camp opposite it, by the sea. Pharaoh will say of the Israelites, “They are wandering aimlessly in the land; the wilderness has closed in on them.” I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, so that I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord. And they did so.
When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the minds of Pharaoh and his officials were changed toward the people, and they said, “What have we done, letting Israel leave our service?” So he had his chariot made ready, and took his army with him; he took six hundred picked chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the Israelites, who were going out boldly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, his chariot drivers and his army; they overtook them camped by the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon.
As Pharaoh drew near, the Israelites looked back, and there were the Egyptians advancing on them. In great fear the Israelites cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, ‘Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” But Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground. Then I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and so I will gain glory for myself over Pharaoh and all his army, his chariots, and his chariot drivers. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gained glory for myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his chariot drivers.”
The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. It came between the army of Egypt and the army of Israel. And so the cloud was there with the darkness, and it lit up the night; one did not come near the other all night.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided. The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued, and went into the sea after them, all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and chariot drivers. At the morning watch the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud looked down upon the Egyptian army, and threw the Egyptian army into panic. He clogged[a] their chariot wheels so that they turned with difficulty. The Egyptians said, “Let us flee from the Israelites, for the Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”
The Pursuers Drowned
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.
Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the Lord did against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses. Exodus 14:1-31
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"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and
acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house
on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and
beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded
on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does
not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house
on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the
winds blew and beat against that house,
and it fell—and great was its fall!”
Now when Jesus had finished saying these things,
the crowds were astounded at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having
authority, and not as
their scribes. Matthew 7:24-29
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