Here and Now with Francis 11/12/15 (family, fellowship, conversation, Christ, humanism, church)

From the General Audience

Today we will reflect on a characteristic quality of family life, which is learned from the first years of life: fellowship, that is, the attitude of sharing the goods of life and of being happy to be able to do so. […] Fellowship is a sure thermometer to measure the health of relations: if there is in the family something that is not well, or some hidden wound, at the table it is immediately understood. A family that almost never eats together, or that does not speak at the table, but watches television, or looks at smartphones, is a family that is “very little a family.” When children are attached to their computers at the table, to mobile phones, and do not listen to one another, this is not a family, it is a boarding house. Christianity has a special vocation to fellowship; everyone knows it. […] By participating in the Eucharist, the family is purified from the temptation to shut itself in on itself, fortified in love and fidelity, and stretches the limits of its fraternity according to Christ’s heart. […] Today many social contexts put obstacles to family fellowship. It’s true; today it’s not easy. We must find the way to recover it. One speaks at table, one listens at table. There is no silence, that silence that is not the silence of nuns but the silence of egoism, where every one makes do for himself, or there is the television or the computer ... and there is no talking. No, no silence. We must recover that family fellowship although adapting it to the times. It seems that fellowship has become something that is bought and sold, but then it’s something else. And nourishment is not always the symbol of a just sharing of goods, capable of reaching one who does not have bread or affections. In rich countries we are induced to spending for excessive nourishment, and then we are also induced to remedy the excess. And this foolish “business” takes away our attention from real hunger, of the body and of the soul. When there is no fellowship there is egoism, each one thinks of himself. So much so that advertising has reduced it to a weakness for snacks and a desire for sweets. While so many, too many brothers and sisters, remain outside the table. It is somewhat shameful! 

Let us look at the mystery of the Eucharistic banquet.  [full text]

Pope Francis on new humanism

We can speak of a humanism only from the centrality of Jesus, discovering in Him the features of man’ authentic face. It is the contemplation of the face of Jesus dead and risen that reconstructs our humanity. Looking at His face, what do we see? I do not wish to design here, in the abstract, a “new humanism,” a certain idea of man, but to present with simplicity some traits of Christian humanism, which is that of the “sentiments of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). […] Humility, Unselfishness, Beatitude: these are the three traits that I wish to present today to your meditation on Christian humanism, which is born from the humanity of the Son of God. […] A Church that has these traits – humility, unselfishness, beatitude – is a Church that is able to recognize the Lord’s action in the world, in the culture, in the daily life of the people. I have said it more than once and I repeat it again to you today: I prefer a bumpy, wounded and soiled Church for having gone out through the streets, rather than a sick Church because she is closed in the comfortableness of holding on to her own certainties. I do not want a Church concerned to be at the center and that ends up enclosed in a tangle of obsessions and procedures” (Evangelii Gaudium, 49). However, we know that temptations exist […] The first of them is the Pelagian. It pushes the Church not to be humble, unselfish and blessed. And it does so with the appearance of a good. Pelagianism leads us to have trust in the structures, in the organizations, in the plans, which are perfect because abstract. Often it even leads us to assume a style of control, of hardness, of normativity. The norm gives to the Pelagian the security of feeling superior, of having a precise orientation. […] Christian Doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, questionings, but it is alive, it is able to disquiet, it is able to encourage. It does not have a rigid face; it has a body that moves and develops; it has tender flesh: Christian Doctrine is called Jesus Christ. […] A second temptation to overcome is that of Gnosticism. It leads to trust in logical and clear reasoning, which, however, loses the tenderness of the brother’s flesh. The Italian Church has great Saints by whose example they can help her to live the faith with humility, unselfishness and gladness, from Francis of Assisi to Philip Neri. But we also think of the simplicity of invented personages, such as Don Camillo who teams up with Peppone. I am struck by how, in Guareschi’s stories, the prayer of a good parish priest is united to evident closeness with the people. Dom Camillo said of himself: “I am a poor country priest who knows his parishioners one by one, who loves them, who knows their sorrows and joys, who suffers and is able to laugh with them. “ Closeness to the people and prayer are the key to live a popular, humble, generous and happy Christian humanism. If we lose this contact with the people faithful to God we lose in humanity and go nowhere. 

I appeal above all “to you, young people, because you are strong,” said the Apostle John (1 John 2:14). Young people, overcome apathy. [full address]