Francis with Polish Bishops
What kind of pastoral activity should the Catholic Church in our country undertake?
How do we apply the teaching of mercy, and above all, to whom? In the first place, to whom should our teaching on mercy be addressed?
Holy Father, in Evangelii Gaudium you speak of missionary disciples who enthusiastically bring the Good News to today’s world. What do you suggest to us? Is there a specific way you can encourage us to build up the Church community in our world fruitfully, joyfully and with a missionary spirit?
How can we help them [refugees], since they are so numerous? And what can we do to counter fears of an invasion or aggression on their part, which would paralyze society as a whole?
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perform a work of mercy
that of burying a dead brother.
Visiting the sick
********I believe that in this highly secularized world we have also the other danger, that of a gnostic spiritualization.
For me the bigger problem with secularization is dechristianization: removing Christ, removing the Son. I pray, I feel… and that is all.
closeness
Without closeness, there are only disembodied words.
Concreteness, closeness, touching, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
The works of mercy: to touch, to teach, to console, to “waste time”.
The work of the Son is to touch human weakness: spiritual and corporal. Closeness.
Think of Saint John Paul II. What did he do with the university students? Yes, he gave them classes, but he also went with them to the mountains!
grandparents, the elderly.
Don’t waste the elderly! In this throwaway culture, dechristianized as it is, we discard whatever is not useful or helpful. No! The elderly are the memory of a people; they are the memory of the faith. To connect young people with the elderly: this too is closeness.
********Mercy is a mystery. It is a mystery. It is the mystery of God.
n the fullness of time, he sent his Son to be born of a woman: in the flesh he saves us, in the flesh. Not on the basis of fear, but in the flesh.
the idolatry of money. Men and women are no longer at the apex of creation, replaced by the idol of money, and everything is bought and sold for money. Money at the centre. People exploited. And the way people are being treated today? The same as ever: with cruelty!
Young people do not have a culture of work because they have no jobs.
The earth is dying, because it has been exploited without wisdom.
We are suffering from religious illiteracy superstition because people seek salvation in superstition. Religious illiteracy and a relativism that confuses one thing with another.
Accompaniment is one of the most important attitudes, being ready to accompany people’s growth in faith.
Today’s religious illiteracy has to be countered with three languages, with three tongues: the language of the mind, the language of the heart and the language of the hands. All three together, harmoniously.
a Church that goes forth.
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the parish remains valid! The parish must remain. It is a structure that we must not discard; it is the home of God’s People. The problem is how the parish is organized!
The Lord has asked us to get a little tired, to work and not to rest.
The oratory is one of the great parish institutions, at least in Italy.
So the parish is important! There are those who say that the parish is no longer relevant because this is the hour of the movements. That is not true! The movements help, but the movements must not be an alternative to the parish. They must help in the parish, contribute to the parish, like the confraternities, Catholic Action and so many other groups.
in a town where children tended not to be baptized because people didn’t have a lot of money.
People don’t get married in Church.
But there are lots of people who do not get married because it is expensive! It costs money. Everything costs money… the party… it is a big social event.
if you don’t go out to find them, if you don’t approach them, they do not come. This is what it means to be a missionary disciple
I don’t know if this is a simplistic answer, but I don’t have any other. I’m not a brilliant pastoral theologian
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Corruption is really at the origin of migration.
For example, weekly prayer to the Blessed Sacrament, prayer for those who knock at Europe’s door and are unable to enter. Some do, but others don’t…
what is absolute is a welcoming heart. That is absolute! With prayer and intercession, by doing what I can.
We are experiencing a moment of the annihilation of man as the image of God.
ideological colonization taking place. And one of these - I will call it clearly by its name – is [the ideology of] “gender”.
children – children! – are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex.
Pope Benedict’s observation should make us think. “This is the age of sin against God the Creator”. That will help us.
But all of us can have an open heart and think of spending an hour in the parishes, an hour of adoration and prayer for migrants. Prayer moves mountains!
And don’t forget the elderly, who are the memory of a people.
