Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Today we celebrate the liturgical Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels, and we re-open the Plenary Session of the Synod of Bishops. After listening to the Word of God, let us take three images as starting points for our consideration: voice, refuge and a child.

First, the voice. On the way to the Promised Land, God advises the people to listen to the “voice of the angel” whom he had sent (cf. Ex 23:20-22). It is an image that is relevant to us. As we walk down the path of this Synod, the Lord places in our hands the history, dreams and hopes of a great people. They are our sisters and brothers scattered throughout the world, inspired by the same faith, moved by the same desire for holiness. With them and for them, let us strive to understand the path we must follow in order to reach the destination the Lord desires for us. But how can we listen to the “voice of the angel”?

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Pope Francis  Penitential Vigil   01.10.24

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

As Sirach reminds us, “the prayer of the humble pierces the clouds” (35:21).

We are here as beggars of the Father's mercy, asking for forgiveness.

The Church is always the Church of the poor in spirit and sinners seeking forgiveness. It is not only a Church of the righteous and saints, but rather of the righteous and saints who recognize that they are poor sinners.

I wanted to write down the requests for forgiveness that were read by some of the Cardinals, because it was necessary to call our principal sins for what they are. We hide them or say them with too many polite words.

Sin is always a wound in relationships: the relationship with God and the relationship with our brothers and sisters. Sisters and brothers, no one is saved alone, but it is equally true that the sin of one affects many others. Just as everything is connected in the good, it is also connected in evil.

The Church in its essence is a Church that is always relational in its faith and proclamation, and only by healing sick relationships can we become a synodal Church. How could we be credible in our mission if we do not acknowledge our mistakes and stoop to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins? 

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Pope Francis Holy Mass 02.10.24

Pope Francis Penitential Vigil 01.10.24

Pope Francis  Meeting with University Students    28.09.24

Apostolic Journey to Belgium

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Thank you, Madame Rector, for your kind words. Dear students, I am pleased to meet you and listen to your reflections. I can sense in your words passion and hope, a desire for justice and the search for truth.

Among the issues you raised, I was struck by the one concerning the future and anxiety. It is easy to see how a violent and arrogant wickedness is destroying people and the environment. It seems to know no limits and is most brutally expressed by war – in a country that I will not name, the investments that provide the most profits come from the production of arms, it is terrible! – and its shows no signs of stopping: war is a brutal thing; but also by corruption and modern forms of slavery. War, corruption and new forms of slavery. Sometimes these evils even corrupt religion itself, turning it into an instrument of domination. Be careful! Yet this is blasphemy, whereby the union of men and women with God, who is saving Love, is turned into slavery, and even the name of Father, a revelation meant to heal, becomes an expression of arrogance. However, God is Father, not overlord; God is Son and Brother, not dictator; God is the Spirit of love, not of domination.

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Pope Francis October 2024

For a shared mission

Let us pray that the Church continue to sustain a synodal lifestyle in every way, as a sign of coresponsibility, promoting the participation, communion and mission shared by priests, religious and laity.

We Christians are all responsible for the Church’s mission. Every priest. Everyone.

We priests are not the bosses of the laity, but their pastors. Jesus called us, one and others – not one above others, or one on one side and others on another side, but complementing each other. We are community. That is why we need to walk together, taking the path of synodality.

Sure, you could ask me, What can I do as a bus driver? A farmer? A fisher? What all of us need to do is to witness with our lives. Be co-responsible for the Church’s mission.

The laity, the baptized are in the Church, in their own home, and need to take care of it. So do we priests and consecrated persons. Everyone contributes what they know how to do best. We are co-responsible in mission, we participate and we live in the communion of the Church.

Let us pray that the Church continue to sustain a synodal lifestyle in every way, as a sign of co-responsibility, promoting the participation, communion and mission shared by priests, religious and laity.

October  2024

Pope Francis  Holy Mass  29.09.24

Apostolic Journey to Belgium

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea” (Mk 9:42). With these words, directed to the disciples, Jesus warns of the danger of scandal, that is, of hindering the path and hurting the lives of the “little ones”. It is a stern warning that calls us to pause and reflect. I would like to do so with you, in the light of the other Sacred Texts, by looking at three key words: openness, communion and witness.

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Pope Francis  Meeting with University Professors   27.09.24

Apostolic Journey to Belgium

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

I am pleased to be here among you. I thank the Rector for his words of welcome in which he reflected on the tradition and historical roots of the University, and on the principal challenges we all face today. Indeed, the first task of a university is to offer integral formation so that students may be equipped with the tools needed for interpreting the present and planning for the future.

Yet cultural formation is never an end in itself, and universities should never run the risk of becoming “cathedrals in the desert”. They are, by their nature, driving forces of ideas and sources of new inspiration for human life and thought, and for facing the challenges in society. In other words, they are generative places. It is a fine thing to view universities as generating culture and ideas, but above all as promoting the passion for seeking truth, at the service of human progress. In a particular way, Catholic Universities such as yours are called to “offer the decisive contribution of leaven, salt and light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the living Tradition of the Church, which is ever open to new situations and ideas” (Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, 3).

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Pope Francis  Meeting with Clergy and Pastoral Workers    28.09.24

Apostolic Journey to Belgium

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

I am happy to be here with you. I thank Bishop Terlinden for his words and for reminding us of the importance of proclaiming the Gospel. Thanks to all of you.

Belgium is very much a crossroads, and you are a Church “on the move”. Indeed, for some time you have been trying to transform the presence of the parishes in this region, and to reinvigorate the formation of the laity. Above all, you strive to be a community that is close to the people, and that accompanies them, bearing witness through works of mercy.

Prompted by your questions, I would like to offer a brief reflection on three words: evangelization, joy and mercy.

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How do we receive the Word of God? The response is clear: As one receives Jesus Christ. The Church tells us that Jesus is present in the Scripture, in His Word.

Always carry a small Gospel with you in your purse, in your pocket, and read a passage from the Gospel during the day. Not so much to learn something, but mostly to find Jesus, because Jesus actually is in His Word, in His Gospel.  Every time I read the Gospel, I find Jesus.  - Pope Francis 01.09.14

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Pope Francis  General Audience  25.09.24  

Never converse with the devil

Excerpt below, for the full transcript click on the picture link above

Immediately after His baptism in the Jordan, Jesus “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mt 4:1) – this is what the Gospel of Matthew says. The initiative is not Satan’s, but God’s. Going into the wilderness, Jesus obeys an inspiration of the Holy Spirit; He does not fall into an enemy snare, no, no! Once He has withstood the test, it is written, He returns to Galilee “in the power of the Spirit” (Lk 4:14).

In the wilderness, Jesus freed Himself of Satan, and now He can deliver from Satan. He freed Himself, He frees from Satan. It is what the Evangelists highlight with the numerous studies of deliverance from possession. Jesus says to His opponents: “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28). And Jesus casts out the demons, with the aspiration of the kingdom of God.

Nowadays we are witnessing a strange phenomenon regarding the devil. At a certain cultural level, it is held that he simply does not exist. He would be a symbol of the collective subconscious, or alienation; in short, a metaphor. But “the cleverest ruse of the devil is to persuade you he does not exist!”, as someone wrote (Charles Baudelaire). He is astute: he makes us believe that he does not exist, and in this way he dominates everything. He is cunning. And yet our technological and secularized world is teeming with magicians, occultism, spiritualism, astrologers, sellers of spells and amulets, and unfortunately with real satanic sects. Driven out the door, the devil has re-entered, one might say, through the window. Driven out of faith, he re-enters with superstition. And if you are superstitious, you are unconsciously conversing with the devil. One does not converse with the devil.

The strongest proof of the existence of Satan is found not in sinners or the possessed, but in the saints! “And how can this be, Father?”. Yes, it is true that the devil is present and working in certain extreme and “inhuman” forms of evil and wickedness that we see around us. But by this route, though, it is practically impossible to reach, in individual cases, the certainty that it is truly him, given that we cannot know with precision where his action ends and our own evil begins. This is why the Church is so prudent and so rigorous in performing exorcism, unlike what happens, unfortunately, in certain films!

It is in the life of the saints, precisely there, that the devil is forced to come out into the open, to place himself “against the light”. All the saints, all the great believers, some more, some less, testify to their struggle with this obscure reality, and one cannot honestly assume that they were all deluded or mere victims of the prejudices of their time.

The battle against the spirit of evil is won as Jesus won it in the wilderness: by striking with the word of God. You see that Jesus does not converse with the devil, He never conversed with the devil. Either he casts him out, or condemns him, but He never converses. And in the wilderness, he replies not with His word, but with the Word of God. Brothers, sisters, never converse with the devil; when temptations present themselves: “But, this would be nice, that would be nice” – stop. Raise your heart to the Lord, pray to Our Lady and banish him, just as Jesus taught us how to banish him. Saint Peter also suggests another means, that Jesus did not need, but we do – vigilance. “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pt 5:8). And Saint Paul says to us: “Give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph 4:27).

After Christ, on the cross, defeated forever the power of the “ruler of this world” ( Jn 12:31), a Father of the Church said, “the devil is bound, like a dog on a chain; he cannot bite anyone except those who, defying the danger, go near him... He can bark, he can urge, but he can bite only those who want”. If you are a fool and you go to the devil and say, “Ah, how are you?”, and everything, it ruins you. The devil – distance. One does not converse with the devil. One banishes him. Distance. And all of us, everyone, we have experience of how the devil approaches with some temptation. The temptation of the ten commandments: when we feel this, stop, keep your distance: do not approach the chained dog.

Modern technology, for example, besides the many positive resources that are to be appreciated, offers also countless means to “give an opportunity to the devil”, and many fall in the trap. Think of online pornography, behind which there is a flourishing market: we all know this. It is the devil at work, there. And this is a very widespread phenomenon, which Christians should beware of and strongly reject. Because any smartphone has access to this brutality, to this language of the devil: online pornography.

Awareness of the action of the devil in history should not discourage us. The final thought must be, also in this case, of trust and security: “I am with the Lord, be gone”. Christ overcame the devil and gave us the Holy Spirit to make His victory our own. The very action of the enemy can turn to our advantage, if with God's help we make it serve our purification. Let us therefore ask the Holy Spirit, in the words of the hymn Veni Creator:

Drive far away our wily Foe,

And Thine abiding peace bestow;

If Thou be our protecting Guide,

No evil can our steps betide”.

Beware, the devil is astute – but we Christians, with God’s grace, are more astute than him. Thank you.

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