Category: Vatican News

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The sainthood causes of seven men and women — including the hermit Blessed Charles de Foucauld and the Indian martyr Devasahayam Pillai — cleared their final hurdle May 3 during an “ordinary public consistory,” a meeting of the pope, cardinals and promoters of sainthood causes that formally ends the sainthood process.

The meeting included a prayer, an affirmation that church law had been followed in preparing for the candidates’ declaration of sainthood and a formal request “in the name of Holy Mother Church” that Pope Francis set a date for the canonizations.

Speaking in Latin, Pope Francis approved the canonizations but said the date for the ceremony would have to be determined later, Vatican News reported, because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld is undoubtedly the best known of the seven saints-to-be.

Pope Francis, in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship,” described Blessed de Foucauld as a “person of deep faith who, drawing upon his intense experience of God, made a journey of transformation toward feeling a brother to all.”

“Blessed Charles directed his ideal of total surrender to God toward an identification with the poor, abandoned in the depths of the African desert,” the pope wrote. “In that setting, he expressed his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being and asked a friend to ‘pray to God that I truly be the brother of all.’ He wanted to be, in the end, ‘the universal brother.’ Yet only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be the brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us.”

Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1858, Blessed de Foucauld strayed from the faith during his adolescence, but during a trip to Morocco, he saw how devoted Muslims were to their faith, which inspired him to return to the church.

He joined the Trappists, living in monasteries in France and in Syria, before seeking an even more austere life as a hermit. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1901, he lived among the poor and finally settled in Tamanrasset, Algeria. In 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders. His writings inspired the foundation, after his death, of the Little Brothers of Jesus and the Little Sisters of Jesus.

The martyr of India who will be declared a saint is Blessed Pillai, an 18th-century Catholic layman who was killed for refusing to refute his faith despite being brutally tortured.

Born to an upper-caste Hindu family in 1712 and given the name Neelakanda, Blessed Pillai became a trusted soldier of the Hindu king but later incurred his wrath for embracing Christianity. Baptized in May 1745, he was given the name Devasahayam, a Tamil rendering of the biblical name Lazarus.

He began preaching and converted his wife and others, which made many officials angry. He was arrested and sentenced to death in 1749, but just before he was sent to the gallows, the Hindu king canceled the execution order. Blessed Pillai remained imprisoned for three more years, enduring torture and public beatings and ridicule for refusing to renounce his faith before secretly being taken into the jungle and shot.

The others approved for canonization are:

– Blessed César de Bus, the France-born founder of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, a religious congregation dedicated to education, pastoral ministry and catechesis. Born in 1544, he died in 1607.

– Blessed Luigi Maria Palazzolo, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor. He was beatified by St. John XXIII in 1963. The sainthood causes of six members of the order who died in Congo in 1995 caring for victims of Ebola also are underway.

– Blessed Giustino Maria Russolillo, an Italian priest who founded the Society of Divine Vocations for men and the Vocationist Sisters. He was born in 1891 and died in 1955.

– Blessed Anna Maria Rubatto, founder of the order now known as the Capuchin Sisters of Mother Rubatto. She was born in Carmagnola, Italy, in 1844 and died in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1904.

– Blessed Maria Domenica Mantovani, co-founder and first superior general of the Little Sisters of the Holy Family. Born in 1862 in Castelletto di Brenzone, Italy, she dedicated her life to serving the poor and needy as well as assisting the sick and the elderly. She died in 1934.

 

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – To express the closeness of God and of the church to every older person, Pope Francis has chosen “I am with you always” from the Gospel of Matthew as the theme for the first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly.

The theme for the celebration July 25 is especially appropriate “in these challenging pandemic times,” said the announcement from the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.

“‘I am with you always’ is also a promise of closeness and hope that young and old can mutually share. Not only are grandchildren and young people called upon to be present in the lives of older people, but older people and grandparents also have a mission of evangelization, proclamation and prayer, and of encouraging young people in their faith,” the statement said.

Pope Francis announced in late January that he was establishing the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which is to be celebrated each year on the fourth Sunday of July to coincide with the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, Jesus’ grandparents.

Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the dicastery, had said the annual event would be “a gift to the whole church” and one that emphasizes the pastoral care of the elderly as “a priority that can no longer be postponed by any Christian community.”

“In the encyclical, ‘Fratelli Tutti,’ the Holy Father reminds us that no one is saved alone. With this in mind, we must treasure the spiritual and human wealth that has been handed down from generation to generation,” he said.

Pope Francis is expected to mark the day with an evening Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has called for a global prayer marathon for the entire month of May, praying for the end to the pandemic.

“The initiative will involve in a special way all shrines in the world” in promoting the initiative so that individuals, families and communities all take part in reciting the rosary, “to pray for the end of the pandemic,” said the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization in a press release April 21.

“It is the heartfelt desire of the Holy Father that the month of May be dedicated to a prayer marathon dedicated to the theme, ‘from the entire church an unceasing prayer rises to God,'” it said.

The theme refers to the miraculous event recounted in the Acts of the Apostles (12:1-12) when all the church prayed for Peter, who was imprisoned until God sent an angel to free him, illustrating how the Christian community comes together to pray in the face of danger and how the Lord listens and performs an unexpected miracle.

Each day in May, there will be a livestream from one of 30 chosen Marian shrines or sanctuaries to guide the prayer at 6 p.m. Rome time (noon EDT) on all Vatican media platforms.

The pope will open the monthlong prayer May 1 and conclude it May 31, the council said.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Because prayer is a dialogue with God, people should not dismiss or be embarrassed by saying their prayers out loud or in a whisper, Pope Francis said.

“Vocal prayer is an essential element of the Christian life,” and when Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, it was with a vocal prayer, the “Our Father,” the pope said April 21 during his weekly general audience.

Continuing his series of talks on prayer, the pope reflected on the importance of speaking the words of prayers out loud rather than seeing prayer just as a mental exercise or form of meditation.

Too often, people think reciting a prayer is something only children or the uneducated do, but it is the way Jesus taught his followers to pray, he said.

“The words we speak take us by the hand. At times they restore flavor, they awaken even the sleepiest of hearts,” they reawaken forgotten feelings and they “lead us by the hand toward experiencing God,” he said.

People should be humble when seeing the elderly who unfailingly show their fidelity to the duty of prayer and who are “often the great intercessors of parishes,” he said.

“They are the oaks that from year to year spread their branches to offer shade to the greatest number of people,” he said. And even though they, too, must have faced moments of darkness and emptiness, they remain faithful to vocal prayer.

“It is like an anchor, one can hold onto the rope and remain faithful, come what may,” he said.

“The words of a prayer get us safely through a dark valley, direct us toward green meadows rich in water and enable us to feast in front of the eyes of an enemy,” as Psalm 23 teaches, he said.

The words can both reflect and shape feelings, helping feelings come to light, excluding and censoring nothing, the pope said.

“Pain is dangerous if it stays covered, closed up within us” as it can poison the soul, Pope Francis said.

Sacred Scripture shows the human heart can be home to harmful or hateful feelings, he said, “and when these evil feelings come knocking at the door of our heart, we must be able to defuse them with prayer and God’s words.”

Vocal prayers “are the only ones, in a sure way, that direct to God the questions he wants to hear. Jesus did not leave us in a fog. He told us, ‘Pray then like this,’ and he taught the Lord’s Prayer,” he said.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Greeting visitors in St. Peter’s Square after nearly a month of tight restrictions due to the pandemic, Pope Francis said he was happy to see people allowed to gather and be present for Sunday noonday prayer.

“I offer a warm greeting to all of you, people of Rome and pilgrims,” he said, pointing out the many flags he could see being held high.

A few hundred people, all wearing masks and socially distanced, attended the recitation of the “Regina Coeli” prayer April 18 after nearly a month of tighter controls on gatherings in an ongoing attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

“Thanks be to God, we can find ourselves again in this square for the Sunday and holiday appointment,” he said, adding how much he misses greeting people in the square when he must recite the midday prayer inside the apostolic library.

“I am happy, thanks be to God! And thank you for your presence,” he said to applause.

In his main talk, Pope Francis said Jesus is a real living person whose presence always leaves the person encountering him astonished, which “goes beyond enthusiasm, beyond joy; it is another experience” that is profoundly beautiful.

He said the day’s Gospel reading of the risen Christ’s appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem, “tells us that Jesus is not a ‘ghost,’ but a living person,” who fills people with joy.

“Being Christian is not first of all a doctrine or a moral ideal; it is a living relationship with him, with the risen Lord: we look at him, we touch him, we are nourished by him and, transformed by his love, we look at, touch and nourish others as brothers and sisters,” he said.

Jesus invites his disciples to truly look at him, which involves “intention, will” and an attitude of loving care and concern, he said.

More than seeing, it is the way parents look at their child, “lovers gaze at each other, a good doctor looks at the patient carefully. … looking is a first step against indifference, against the temptation to look the other way before the difficulties and sufferings of others,” the pope said.

By inviting the disciples to touch him, he said, Jesus shows that a relationship with him and with one’s brothers and sisters “cannot remain at a distance” but requires a love that looks and comes close, making contact, sharing and “entering into a communion of life, a communion with him.”

And the verb, to eat, clearly expresses “our humanity,” he said, and “our need to nourish ourselves in order to live.”

When people come together to eat, it becomes “an expression of love, an expression of communion, of celebration,” which is why “the eucharistic banquet has become the emblematic sign of the Christian community. Eating together the body of Christ: this is the core of Christian life,” the pope said.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Increasing vocations to the priesthood, improving the way laypeople and priests work together and ensuring that service, not power, motivates the request for ordination are all possible outcomes of a major symposium being planned by the Vatican in February 2022.

“A theological symposium does not claim to offer practical solutions to all the pastoral and missionary problems of the church, but it can help us deepen the foundation of the church’s mission,” said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and the chief organizer of the symposium planned for Feb. 17-19, 2022.

The symposium, “Toward a Fundamental Theology of the Priesthood,” seeks to encourage an understanding of ministerial priesthood that is rooted in the priesthood of all believers conferred at baptism, getting away from the idea of ordained ministry as belonging to “ecclesiastical power,” the cardinal said at a news conference April 12.

The three-day gathering, the cardinal said, is aimed specifically at bishops and delegations of theologians and vocations personnel from every country, although it will be open to other theologians and people interested in the topic.

The relationship between baptism and ordained ministry needs greater emphasis today, Cardinal Ouellet said, but reviewing the foundations of a theology of priesthood also “involves ecumenical questions not to be ignored, as well as the cultural movements that question the place of women in the church.”

The recent synods of bishops on the family, on young people and on the church in the Amazon all show the urgency of questions surrounding priesthood and relationships among people with different vocations in the church, the cardinal said.

Michelina Tenace, a professor of theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, is helping organize the symposium and told reporters that going back to baptism and the priesthood of all believers “isn’t just a fashion, it’s the basis for all Christian life.”

The clerical abuse scandal, she said, makes the questions of priestly identity, vocational discernment and formation more urgent.

Father Vincent Siret, rector of the Pontifical French Seminary in Rome, said a deeper reflection on priesthood — both the priesthood of all the baptized and ministerial priesthood — is essential for those engaged in training men for the priesthood.

“The baptismal life is the fundamental human vocation, and all must exercise the priesthood received at baptism. Ministry is at the service of this,” he said. “Reflecting on the fundamental theology of the priesthood will also make it possible to return to the justifications for priestly celibacy and the way it is lived.”

The Catholic Church requires most priests in its Latin rite to be celibate. While Cardinal Ouellet, Father Siret and Tenace all mentioned the importance of celibacy in the Latin rite, none of them mentioned the traditions of the Eastern Catholic churches that continue to have both married an

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Easter liturgies — with the fire, sharing of light from the paschal candle, the renewal of baptismal promises and the proclamation that Jesus has risen – assure people that it is never too late to start again, Pope Francis said.

“It is always possible to begin anew, because there is a new life that God can awaken in us in spite of all our failures,” the pope said April 3 during his celebration of the Easter Vigil.

With Italy in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pope Francis celebrated a pared-down vigil at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica with an estimated 200 people present and returned the next morning with a similarly small congregation for Easter Mass and to give his blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

The vigil was simpler than usual, but there still was the blessing of the fire, which blazed at the foot of the basilica’s main altar, and the lighting of the Easter candle. Then, the darkened basilica slowly began to glow with the light of candles being shared by the concelebrants and the faithful present.

In his homily at the vigil, the pope said the Gospel proclamation of the resurrection and the angel’s invitation to the women at Jesus’ tomb to “go to Galilee” was a call to return to “the place where the Lord first sought them out and called them to follow him.”

Although his followers often misunderstood Jesus and even abandoned him “in the face of the cross,” he still urges them to “begin anew,” the pope said.

“In this Galilee,” the pope said, “we learn to be amazed by the Lord’s infinite love, which opens new trails along the path of our defeats.”

The pope said the call to return to Galilee also means to set out on a new path, away from the tomb and from indulging in grief.

Like those at the tomb, he said, “many people experience such a ‘faith of memories,’ as if Jesus were someone from the past, an old friend from their youth who is now far distant, an event that took place long ago, when they attended catechism as a child.”

“Let us go to Galilee, then, to discover that God cannot be filed away among our childhood memories, but is alive and filled with surprises,” he said. “Risen from the dead, Jesus never ceases to amaze us.”

The call to go to Galilee — a region inhabited by “those farthest from the ritual purity of Jerusalem” — is a reminder for Christians to go out to the peripheries and imitate Jesus who brought the presence of God to those who were excluded.

“The Risen Lord is asking his disciples to go there even now, to the settings of daily life, the streets we travel every day, the corners of our cities,” the pope said. “There the Lord goes ahead of us and makes himself present in the lives of those around us, those who share in our day, our home, our work, our difficulties and hopes.”

Pope Francis said Jesus calls on all Christians today to “overcome barriers, banish prejudices” and to recognize the Lord “here in our Galilees, in everyday life.”

“If on this night, you are experiencing an hour of darkness, a day that has not yet dawned, a light dimmed or a dream shattered,” he said, “open your heart with amazement to the message of Easter: ‘Do not be afraid, he has risen! He awaits you in Galilee.'”

As is customary, Pope Francis did not preach at the Easter morning Mass, which featured the chanting of the Gospel in both Latin and Greek.

With Italy on another lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pope gave his Easter blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) standing inside St. Peter’s Basilica rather than from the balcony overlooking a full St. Peter’s Square.

“The Easter message does not offer us a mirage or reveal a magic formula,” the pope said before giving the blessing. “It does not point to an escape from the difficult situation we are experiencing. The pandemic is still spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for the poor.”

The pope offered prayers for the sick and those who have died of COVID-19 and for the doctors and nurses who have made “valiant efforts” to care for the pandemic’s victims.

And he had special words of Easter hope for young people struggling in isolation from their friends. “Experiencing real human relationships, not just virtual relationships, is something that everyone needs, especially at an age when a person’s character and personality is being formed,” he said.

“I express my closeness to young people throughout the world and, in these days, especially to the young people of Myanmar committed to supporting democracy and making their voices heard peacefully, in the knowledge that hatred can be dispelled only by love,” he said.

Pope Francis prayed for many places in the world where the need to fight the pandemic has not silenced the weapons of war and violence.

“This is scandalous,” he said. “Armed conflicts have not ended and military arsenals are being strengthened.”

The Gospel witnesses to the Resurrection, he said, “report an important detail: the risen Jesus bears the marks of the wounds in his hands, feet and side. These wounds are the everlasting seal of his love for us. All those who experience a painful trial in body or spirit can find refuge in these wounds and, through them, receive the grace of the hope that does not disappoint.”

“May the light of the risen Jesus be a source of rebirth for migrants fleeing from war and extreme poverty,” he prayed. “Let us recognize in their faces the marred and suffering face of the Lord as he walked the path to Calvary. May they never lack concrete signs of solidarity and human fraternity, a pledge of the victory of life over death that we celebrate on this day.”

And, while the pandemic restrictions meant simpler and smaller Vatican celebrations of Easter, Pope Francis noted that in many places the limitations are stricter and even prevent people from going to church.

“We pray that those restrictions, as well as all restrictions on freedom of worship and religion worldwide, may be lifted and everyone be allowed to pray and praise God freely,” he said.

Calling again for a fair and speedy distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, the pope said that “in embracing the cross, Jesus bestowed meaning on our sufferings, and now we pray that the benefits of that healing will spread throughout the world.”

 

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Living and preaching the Gospel always involves embracing “the cross,” whether it be in the form of misunderstanding, hostility or outright persecution, Pope Francis told Rome priests gathered for the chrism Mass.

In the life of Jesus and in the lives of his disciples today, “the hour of joyful proclamation, the hour of persecution and the hour of the cross go together,” the pope said at the Mass April 1 at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis did not celebrate a chrism Mass last year because Italy, and much of the world, was in the midst of the first huge wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But even with vaccines being distributed and death rates dropping, Italy was under a modified lockdown, so only about 75 priests representing their confreres in the Diocese of Rome were able to attend the Mass with their bishop, the pope.

At total of about 200 people, including three dozen cardinals, were present for the liturgy. The principal concelebrants were Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the new vicar for Vatican City, and Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, vicar for Rome.

The chrism Mass has two unique characteristics: the blessing of the oils used for the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, ordination and the anointing of the sick; and priests renewing the promises they made at ordination.

Deacons brought the oils in large silver urns to the pope, who prayed that God would bless them and the people who will be anointed with them.

Then the priests present vowed that they were “resolved to be more united with the Lord Jesus and more closely conformed to him,” and that, out of love for Christ, they renewed the promises they “willingly and joyfully pledged” on the day of their ordination.

The liturgy also includes the bishop asking the faithful present to pray for their priests and for him. Pope Francis slightly altered the text of the second prayer, asking the congregation, “Pray for me — I need it — so that I may be faithful to the apostolic service entrusted to me and so that in your midst I may be made day by day more the image of Christ, the priest — simply that — good shepherd, teacher and servant of all.”

In his homily, Pope Francis acknowledged how many obstacles a priest can encounter as he teaches, preaches and celebrates the sacraments.

The story from Luke’s Gospel of Jesus reading the Scriptures in the synagogue at Nazareth, arousing both admiration and anger, the pope said, shows how “Jesus’ words have the power to bring to light whatever each of us holds in the depths of our heart, often mixed like the wheat and the tares.”

“The preaching of the Gospel is always linked to the embrace of some particular cross,” Pope Francis said. “The gentle light of God’s word shines brightly in well-disposed hearts but awakens confusion and rejection in those that are not.”

That conflict is seen repeatedly in the Gospels, the pope said, noting how, for example, “the tender love of the merciful father irresistibly draws the prodigal son home, but also leads to anger and resentment on the part of the elder son” or how “the generosity of the owner of the vineyard is a reason for gratitude among the workers called at the last hour, but it also provokes a bitter reaction by one of those called first, who is offended by the generosity of his employer.”

The cross, including misunderstanding, rejection and persecution, is present in the Gospel from the very beginning of Jesus’ life, the pope said. “The cross is not an afterthought, something that happened by chance in the Lord’s life.”

And, he told the priests, “it is true that the cross is present in our preaching of the Gospel, but it is the cross of our salvation.”

“We are not scandalized” by the presence of the cross — “the large crosses of humanity and the small crosses in the lives of each of us” — he said, because “Jesus himself was not scandalized by seeing that his joyful preaching of salvation to the poor was not received wholeheartedly, but amid the shouts and threats of those who refused to hear his word.”

“We are not scandalized because Jesus was not scandalized by having to heal the sick and to set prisoners free amid the moralistic, legalistic and clerical squabbles that arose every time he did some good,” the pope continued.

“The Lord always gives us what we ask for, but he does so in his divine way,” Pope Francis said. “That way involves the cross. Not for masochism. But for love, love to the very end.”

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A Christian life should be filled with amazement – astonishment at the son of God suffering and dying for humanity and awe at realizing how precious and loved people are in his eyes, Pope Francis said.

“Can we still be moved by God’s love? Have we lost the ability to be amazed by him?” the pope asked in his homily during Palm Sunday Mass, marking the start of Holy Week.

“Let us be amazed by Jesus so that we can start living again, for the grandeur of life lies not in possessions and promotions, but in realizing that we are loved and in experiencing the beauty of loving others,” he said at the Mass March 28.

Palm Sunday Mass, the liturgy that begins with a commemoration of Jesus entering Jerusalem among a jubilant crowd, began with a small procession toward the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica with a few dozen concelebrating cardinals and bishops walking ahead of Pope Francis.

Dressed in red vestments, the color of the Passion, they held large woven palm fronds while the reduced congregation of faithful were sitting distanced in the pews, wearing facemasks and holding small olive branches. Broadcast and livestreamed over a wide range of media, the pope preached in his homily about Holy Week marking an important time to be amazed by Jesus, who completely overturned people’s expectations.

Instead of being “a powerful liberator at Passover,” he arrives on a lowly donkey “to bring the Passover to fulfillment by sacrificing himself” and, instead of triumphing over the Romans by the sword, “Jesus comes to celebrate God’s triumph through the cross,” the pope said.

What is amazing, he said, “is the fact that he achieves glory through humiliation. He triumphs by accepting suffering and death, things that we, in our quest for admiration and success, would rather avoid.”

Even more astonishing is that he endures all this pain and humiliation “for us, to plumb the depths of our human experience, our entire existence, all our evil. To draw near to us and not abandon us in our suffering and our death. To redeem us, to save us,” the pope said.

With his love, sacrifice and salvation, “now we know that we are not alone: God is at our side in every affliction, in every fear; no evil, no sin will ever have the final word,” he said.

“Let us ask for the grace to be amazed,” he said, because not only is a Christian life without amazement “drab and dreary,” how can people proclaim “the joy of meeting Jesus, unless we are daily astonished and amazed by his love, which brings us forgiveness and the possibility of a new beginning?”

Pope Francis asked that people begin Holy Week with this sense of amazement, by gazing upon Jesus on the cross, and saying to him, “Lord, how much you love me! How precious I am to you!”

“With the grace of amazement we come to realize that in welcoming the dismissed and discarded, in drawing close to those ill-treated by life, we are loving Jesus. For that is where he is, in the least of our brothers and sisters, in the rejected and discarded,” the pope said.

After the Mass and before praying the Angelus, Pope Francis recalled this was the second Holy Week celebrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. While last year was experienced more as a shock, this year “it is more trying for us” and the economic crisis has become very burdensome.

The devil “is taking advantage of the crisis to disseminate distrust, desperation and discord,” he said, but Jesus is taking up the cross, taking “on the evil that this situation entails, the physical and psychological evil, and, above all, the spiritual evil.”

“What should we do?” he asked.

People should be like Mary, the mother of Jesus, and follow her son, he said.

“She took upon herself her own portion of suffering, of darkness, of confusion, and she walked the way of the Passion keeping the lamp of faith lit in her heart. With God’s grace, we too can make that journey,” the pope said.

The pope also asked that people pray for all victims of violence, “especially those of this morning’s attack in Indonesia, in front of the cathedral of Makassar.”

At least 14 people were wounded in what police suspect was a suicide bomb attack outside the cathedral. As of March 28, no group had claimed responsibility for the bombing.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – One year ago, Pope Francis stood in a rain-drenched, empty St. Peter’s Square praying for God’s comfort as the world began experiencing the growing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Vatican is commemorating that event with a book of texts and images “encapsulating the meaning of that extraordinary moment of prayer,” the Dicastery for Communication said in a March 24 press release.

The English version of the book titled, “Why are You Afraid? Have You No Faith?” is jointly published by the Vatican publishing house and Our Sunday Visitor.

The book includes Pope Francis’ recent reflections about that evening and what was going through his mind.

He said he thought about “the empty square, people united at a distance,” and about the sculpture in the square of a boat carrying migrants, which made him think how “we are all on the boat.”

“The whole drama is in front of the boat: the plague, the loneliness, in silence,” and he thought about how “everything was united: the people, the boat and everyone’s suffering,” he said.

Even though the square was completely empty of people due to the nationwide shelter-in-place order, he said, Jesus and Mary were present, which he wanted symbolized by displaying the “Miraculous Crucifix” from Rome’s Church of St. Marcellus and the icon of “Salus Populi Romani” (health of the Roman people) from the Basilica of St. Mary Major.

And, he said, “I was in contact with the people. There was no moment I was alone.”

When asked what gave him strength and hope during the intense moments of the hourlong prayer and blessing, the pope said, “Kissing the feet of the crucified Christ always gives me hope.”

“He knows what it means to walk, and he knows all about quarantine because they put two nails there to keep him there,” he said.

“Jesus’ feet are a compass for people’s lives, when to walk and when to stand still. The Lord’s feet are very touching for me,” the pope said.

The English edition can be ordered from OSV at https://www.osvcatholicbookstore.com/product/why-are-you-afraid-have-you-no-faith