Pope at Mass: May Europe be united in dream of the Founding Fathers

Source: Verse of the day of 1 Corinthians 2:8

Pope Francis prays at Mass on Wednesday for Europe to show unity in response to the Covid-19 crisis, and reflects on the depth of God’s love for us. (Playback included)

By Devin Watkins

As he began Mass in the Casa Santa Marta on Wednesday morning, Pope Francis urged all nations to be united as they face the Covid-19 pandemic. He prayed especially for Europe.
“At this moment in which unity is very necessary between ourselves and between nations, we pray today for Europe, so that Europe might succeed in creating this fraternal unity dreamt of by the founding fathers of the European Union.”

God loves us madly

In his homily, the Pope reflected on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in the day’s Gospel (Jn 3:16-21): “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
Pope Francis said this passage contains a wealth of theological revelation about Redemption.
He focused his attention on two aspects: the revelation of God’s love and the existential choice between light and darkness.
“God loves us,” said the Pope. “He loves us madly. As one saint used to say, God’s love seems like madness.”

Listen to our report

Cross contains all Christian wisdom

The cross, said Pope Francis, is the highest expression of this love. He added that everything is revealed to those who contemplate the cross.
"So many people, so many Christians, pass time gazing at the Crucified... And there they find everything because they have understood. The Holy Spirit teaches them that therein lies all science, all of God’s love, and all Christian wisdom. Saint Paul speaks about this, explaining that all human reasoning is useful only up to a certain point. But true reasoning – the most beautiful way of thinking which also explains everything – is the cross of Christ, is Christ crucified, who is scandal and madness. But He is the way. And this is the love of God. God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. Why? So that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. This is the love of the Father who wants His children with Him."

Light over darkness

Pope Francis then reflected on the choice between light and darkness. He said there are some people – “including us sometimes” – who are unable to live in the light, because they have become accustomed to darkness.
“Light blinds them and they cannot see. They are like human bats: they can only move about during the night. We ourselves, when we are in a state of sin, find ourselves in this condition, unable to tolerate the light. It is easier to live in the darkness; light slaps us on the face and shows us what we don’t want to see.”

Corruption blinds

Though it is difficult to face what the light reveals to us, said Pope Francis, it is worse when the eyes of the soul become ignorant of the light.
“So many human scandals and corruption teach us this. Those who are corrupt do not know what the light is, and don’t recognize it.”

Child of God… Or bat?

Pope Francis concluded inviting us to let the light of God’s love shine in our lives through the Holy Spirit. And we can ask ourselves:
“Do I walk in the light or in darkness? Am I a child of God? Or have I ended up like a bat?”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol6rVYoFY8k?wmode=opaque&rel=0&autohide=1&showinfo=0&wmode=transparent&modestbranding=1&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.vaticannews.va&start=&end=]

Full video of Pope's Mass

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope-francis/mass-casa-santa-marta/2020-04/pope-francis-mass-european-fraternal-unity.html

Pope to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday in Rome church

This year, the feast of Divine Mercy, which is celebrated on the Sunday after Easter, turns 20. Pope Francis will mark it on Sunday with a Holy Mass at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia, the centre of the devotion to Divine Mercy in Rome.

  

By Robin Gomes

Some 200 meters from St. Peter’s Square is the Church of the Holy Spirit, the sanctuary and centre of the devotion to Divine Mercy in Rome, where Pope Francis will mark Divine Mercy Sunday, April 19. The Mass that will be streamed and televised live, will have only a handful of faithful because of the coronavirus lockdown in Italy and the Vatican.

Saints Faustina and John Paul II

The devotion to Divine Mercy was popularized by the 20th-century Polish nun, Saint Faustina Kowalska, as requested to her by Jesus in visions and conversations..
Saint Pope John Paul II instituted Divine Mercy Sunday on the occasion of the canonization of St. Faustina, April 30, 2000, the Second Sunday after Easter, thus opening the devotion and the feast of Divine Mercy to the Universal Church.
From his early years, Pope John Paul II had an ardent devotion to Divine Mercy, as promoted by Sister Faustina, who died in 1938 at the age of 33 in Krakow, where Karol Wojtyla was to become archbishop, cardinal and was later elected Pope in 1978.
Pope John Paul II who beatified Sister Faustina on April 18, 1993, Sunday after Easter, died on April 2, 2005, the eve of the Sunday after Easter.
John Paul II himself was beatified on May 1, 2011, Divine Mercy Sunday, and declared a saint on April 27, 2014, also Divine Mercy Sunday.
In an Apostolic Letter issued on the occasion of Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2002, Pope John Paul II granted indulgences to Catholics who go to confession, receive Communion and recite specific prayers on that day.  Subsequently,  this was formally decreed by the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Popes John Paul II and Francis

During his general audience live-streamed on Wednesday, Pope Francis told Polish pilgrims that on Sunday, April 19, he will celebrate the feast of Divine Mercy, established by St. John Paul II, in response to the “the request of the Lord Jesus to St. Faustina”. “Jesus said: ‘I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls.’ Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My Mercy.”
The Holy Father urged that prayers be said with “confidence to Merciful Jesus for the Church and for all humanity, especially for those who suffer in this very difficult time”.
Divine Mercy is certainly a strong, common bond between the Popes John Paul II and Francis. “Dives in Misericordia” (Rich in Mercy), the 1980 encyclical of the Polish Pope is often cited by Pope Francis, the hallmark of whose pontificate has been mercy.
In this regard, we particularly recall the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy that Pope Francis called from December 8, 2015, to November 20, 2016.
Both the pontiffs are known for their sensitivity to human dignity, poverty, disease and suffering, and the need to show mercy.
Pope Francis envisages the Church as a “field hospital” that particularly reaches out to the least, the lost and the last. On the eve of his election, he said that “the Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all forms of misery.”
Today, the devotion to Divine Mercy is widespread across the world. Churches and shrines dedicated to Divine Mercy have sprung up across the world, most importantly the Divine Mercy Shrine in Krakow, which houses the remains of Saint Faustina. Built between 1999–2002, the sanctuary has been visited by 3 popes. Millions of pilgrims from around the world visit it every year.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2020-04/pope-francis-divine-mercy-sunday-20-years-holy-spirit-church.html

Topics

• POPE FRANCIS
• MERCY
• MASS
• POPE JOHN PAUL II
• SAINTS AND BLESSED

19-04-2020 18:55

Holy Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday and recitation of the Regina Coeli

Church of the Holy Spirit in Saxony - Holy Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on Divine Mercy Sunday, followed by the recitation of the Regina Coeli ....

20-04-2020 03:00

Sanctuary of Divine Love-

Pope encourages Catholics to contemplate ‘seven sorrows’ of Mary

Mary and St. John stand at the foot of cross in this depiction of Christ's crucifixion at Holy Family Church in Ramallah, West Bank. (Credit: Debbie Hill/CNS.)

Cindy Wooden

Apr 3, 2020

CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

ROME - On the Friday before Holy Week, Pope Francis asked people to keep a long tradition of Catholic piety by focusing on “the suffering and sorrows of Our Lady.”

“Honor Our Lady and say, ‘This is my mother,’ because she is mother. This is the title that she received from Jesus precisely there, at the cross,” the pope said at Mass April 3. Jesus “did not make her prime minister or give her ‘functional’ titles. Only ‘mother.'”

Mary did not ask for any honor or special titles, the pope said. “She didn’t ask to be a quasi-redemptrix or a co-redemptrix, no. There is only one redeemer and this title cannot be duplicated.”

For decades, some Catholics have been petitioning the popes to recognize Mary as “co-redemptrix” to highlight the essential role she played in redemption.

“Just disciple and mother - and in that way, as mother, we must think about her, seek her out, pray to her,” Pope Francis said. “She is the mother in the church that is mother. In the maternity of Our Lady, we see the maternity of the church, which receives everyone, good and bad, everyone.”

The Friday before Palm Sunday is observed in many places as the “Friday of Sorrows,” a special day of Marian devotion.

Pope Francis asked Catholics to spend time considering the “seven sorrows” of Mary: Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her heart; the flight into Egypt; the worry when the child Jesus could not be found because he was in the temple; meeting Jesus on the way to Calvary; seeing Jesus on the cross; witnessing Jesus, lifeless, being taken down from the cross; and seeing Jesus being buried in the tomb.

Mary bore those sufferings “with strength, with tears - it wasn’t a fake cry, hers was truly a heart destroyed by pain,” the pope said.

Pope Francis said that late in the evening, when he prays the Angelus prayer, he contemplates the seven sorrows and recalls “how the mother of the church, with so much pain, gave birth to all of us.”

With the morning Masses from the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae livestreamed during the coronavirus crisis, Pope Francis begins the liturgy with a special thought and prayer intention each day.

“There are people who already are thinking about the ‘after,’ what happens after the pandemic,” the pope said April 3. They already are strategizing ways to alleviate “all the problems that will come - problems of poverty, jobs, hunger. Let us pray for all the people who are helping today, but also thinking of tomorrow to help all of us.”

https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2020/04/pope-encourages-catholics-to-contemplate-seven-sorrows-of-mary/