Celebrating the feast of St. Ignatius with more than 200 of his Jesuit confreres, Pope Francis prayed that he and all of them would receive "the grace of shame" for their failures and the humility to recognize that whatever good they accomplish is really done by the Lord. Jesus told his disciples never to be ashamed of following him, but Jesuits are taught to look upon the crucifix and "feel that very human and very noble sentiment which is shame for not measuring up," the pope said July 31 during his homily at the Mass in Rome's Church of the Gesu, where St. Ignatius is buried. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said the Mass was "very beautiful and very familial." In his spirituality and spiritual tradition, he said, the pope sees himself as a "son of St. Ignatius" and feels "very close to the Society of Jesus." For the Jesuits, Father Lombardi said, the pope is a confrere, but "we know the pope is the pope." At the end of the Mass, the pope prayed at the tomb of St. Ignatius, before a relic of St. Francis Xavier and at the tomb of Father Pedro Arrupe, superior of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983. He also visited the Chapel of Our Lady of the Way, patroness of the Jesuits and the title of a 15th-century Marian fresco that was dear to St. Ignatius and his first companions. In his homily, Pope Francis prayed that Mary would "help us experience shame for our inadequacy before the treasure that has been entrusted to us, so that we would live with humility before God." The pope also prayed for "our brother in Syria," an obvious reference to Jesuit Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, who was expelled from Syria in June 2012 after intensifying his public calls for democratic change in the country. He reportedly returned to Syria occasionally. Jesuit and other church officials and friends of Father Dall'Oglio said they had been unable to reach him by phone, and the Reuters news agency reported that militants with links to al-Qaida kidnapped the priest July 29 while he was walking in the northern Syrian city of al-Raqqah. As of July 31, the Vatican and the Italian foreign ministry said they could not confirm that he had been kidnapped. The pope's homily was filled with references to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, meditations and instructions for a 30-day retreat that form the basis of Ignatian spirituality. The exercises, he said, are designed to remind Jesuits that Christ and the church must be at the center of all they do; that they must allow themselves to be conquered by Christ in order to serve; and that they must feel shame in order to be humble before God and other people. Every Christian and every Jesuit, Pope Francis said, should ask himself regularly "'Is Christ the center of my life?' because there is always the temptation to place ourselves at the center." And, he said, one cannot serve Christ without being in harmony with and serving the church. "There are no parallel or isolated paths. To serve Christ is to love this concrete church and to serve it with generosity and obedience," he said. But most of the pope's homily focused on humility and recognizing one's limits, so as to be mindful always of greatness of God's mercy. "We look at the wisdom of Christ and our ignorance, at his omnipotence and our weakness, at his justice and our inequity and at his goodness and our badness," the pope said. "We ask for the grace of shame, the shame that comes from a continuous conversation of mercy with him, the shame that makes us blush before Jesus Christ," he said. The sense of shame leads to the virtue of humility, he said, and a recognition that each Christian "carries a great treasure in fragile, inadequate, insufficient earthen vessels." The 76-year-old pope said he thinks often of what the "twilight of the Jesuit" should be as he faces the end of his life. He described as "two icons of this twilight" St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary who died in 1552 awaiting a chance to get to mainland China, and Father Arrupe, who in 1981 suffered a massive stroke, "which began his long and exemplary twilight" that lasted almost 10 years and included seeing Pope John Paul appoint an interim superior of the Jesuits, a move seen by many as a lack of trust in the ability of the Jesuits to govern themselves.

Marking the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, during a recent Angelus address Pope Francis said the transmission of faith takes places first and foremost in the home and among families. "Saints Joachim and Anne were part of a long chain of people who had transmitted their love for God, expressed in the warmth and love of family life, down to Mary, who received the Son of God in her womb and who gave him to the world, to us," Pope Francis told World Youth Day pilgrims on July 26. "How precious is the family as the privileged place for transmitting the faith!" he said. Pope Francis began his Angelus address by telling the pilgrims he would be happy if his visit to Rio were to "renew, in each one of you, your love for Christ and his Church and your joy in being one with him, belonging to the Church and being committed to offering a living witness to the faith." He praised the Angelus as a "beautiful popular expression of the faith" which "punctuates the rhythm of our daily activities," encouraging all to pray it regularly. "It reminds us of a luminous event which transformed history: the Incarnation, the moment when the Son of God became man in Jesus of Nazareth." The Pope turned to reflecting on the day's feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, parents of Mary and grandparents of Jesus, and emphasized to the young pilgrims the importance of honoring their own grandparents. "In their home, Mary came into the world ... (she) grew up in the home of Joachim and Anne; she was surrounded by their love and faith: in their home she learned to listen to the Lord and to follow his will." He noted that Grandparents Day is also celebrated today, marking the feast of God's own grandparents. "How important grandparents are for family life," the Pope said, "for passing on the human and religious heritage which is so essential for each and every society." "How important it is to have intergenerational exchanges and dialogue, especially within the context of the family. Children and the elderly build the future of peoples: children because they lead history forward, the elderly because they transmit the experience and wisdom of their lives," he said. Pope Francis added, "This relationship and this dialogue between generations is a treasure to be preserved and strengthened!"  He said the pilgrims at World Youth Day "wish to acknowledge and honour their grandparents," saluting them with "great affection" and thanking them for the "ongoing witness of their wisdom." Having said that, Pope Francis led the crowd in the Angelus prayer as "one big family," turning to Mary "that she may protect our families and make them places of faith and love in which the presence of Jesus her Son is felt." I ask you pray with me that Pope Francis' message resonate with those seeking God and that Our Lord continue to use the Pope as his vessel on earth.

Building on his lifelong love of comic books, an Eastern Catholic monk has authored a short graphic novel, “The Truth is Out There,” to help explain the truths of the faith in an understandable way. “The reason I did it in cartoon format was because I didn’t think my friends would read it any other way,” said Amadeus – which is the author's pen-name. “The Truth is Out There” tells the story of two space-age mail carriers who begin discussing the meaning of life at a coffee bar, and as they search for truth, one comes to find it resting in the Catholic Church. In the book's introduction, Amadeus recounts that the work began a few years before he entered the monastery, during a conversation he was having with three friends of his who were all “born and raised Catholic. It became appallingly clear how little any of us knew our faith…I had just stumbled upon the greatest problem of my generation of Catholics,” wrote Amadeus. The monk said that he “grew up loving to read,” and his favorite comic was “The Adventures of Tintin.” When he was ten, he was given a book “on how to draw comics. Two, actually; one was how to draw cartoons, the other was how to draw superheroes.” Amadeus found he “could do the cartoons alright,” and said, “I fell in love with cartooning.” In high school and college, he wrote cartoons for his school newspapers, but “wanted to make drawings come to life,” and so became an aerospace engineer. After working as an engineer for a few years, he felt a call to join the Maronite Monks of Adoration, a contemplative order located in Massachusetts. The order is part of the Maronite Church, an Eastern Catholic Church based in Lebanon. The monks' life is contemplative, dedicated to Eucharistic Adoration and praying the Divine Office and the Divine Liturgy. “When I came to the monastery, it was actually incredible: that was when I didn't want to cartoon,” Amadeus related. “I thought, 'I really have to settle into being a monk.' But the moment I entered the silence of the cloister, it was like my head was flooded with cartoons. It was nonstop: I just had all these great ideas.” Amadeus was able, “with a lot of mortification,” to “put off doing this book for a couple of years.” But in the monastery, immersed in philosophy and theology, he found that he wanted to share the riches of the Truth with the friends he had known before entering his new life. “Originally, I wanted to write it out as a letter with a few drawings, like the illustrated manuscript traditions,” he related. But finding that “too boring,” Amadeus said, “finally I broke down and decided to do the whole thing as a comic strip because that’s what I'm good at; that’s what I do best.” “The Truth is Out There” betrays a familiarity with the pre-Christian tradition of philosophy – Plato and Aristotle – as well as the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Amadeus said the comic format is “just the way I know how to get my thoughts, my ideas out,” and that “the harder the idea is, the more helpful it is to draw it out.” Part of his motivation in drawing the graphic novel was to convey the beauty of the Church's faith, and Amadeus said that beauty – whether made by man or God – is meant to draw us to the Creator. “The beauty that we create is obviously taken from the beauty of nature. And the beauty of nature is a reflection of God; that’s his work,” he said. “I don’t think there is a better way to draw hearts to God, to Christ. That’s where all the beautiful churches and artwork, all those things we hold in such high regard…that was inspired by the beauty of nature to return to the beauty of God.” He intends to write another comic novel, this time about salvation history, called “The Big Picture.”

Father Robert Barron, rector of Mundelein Seminary outside of Chicago, has produced a new video series emphasizing the primacy of beauty in drawing people to Christ. “Let's start with the beauty of the faith … I wanted to start with the splendor of it,”  Fr. Barron, a priest of the Chicago archdiocese, told the Catholic News Agency. “I don’t talk about any of the hot button issues.” Slated for release on DVD this August, “Catholicism: The New Evangelization,” explores the Church's mission in contemporary culture. The program follows Fr. Barron's critically acclaimed, high-definition “Catholicism” series of 2011, which aired on PBS nationwide. His approach to the new evangelization – the late Blessed John Paul II's term for reaching formerly Christian societies – tends to begin with “something in the culture that people are watching or paying attention to.” The priest, who founded global media group Word on Fire, said is able to find in these things something “that speaks to the Catholic faith, that reflects the Catholic faith.” “So it’s more of affirmative orthodoxy; a positive approach,” he said. “And I think that intrigues people.” The series focuses on the new evangelization because “it's what we need, as a Church.” It grew out of conversations Fr. Barron had on trips to Australia and England, looking at what is “drawing people in these very secularized societies back to the Church.” The election of Pope Francis has given the Church the opportunity of a new, more positive narrative in the mainstream media, and Fr. Barron suggested that “maybe they are captivated by Francis.” In concert with his focus on beauty as a route for the new evangelization, the priest said, “I want to get people off of the one-sided stress on sexual ethics.” While acknowledging that sexual ethics are “very important,” he said the singular emphasis on this one facet of Church teaching “distorts the message. If you read the New Testament, yes there's a sexual ethic implicit in the New Testament, but would you get the impression that's the one thing that we're supposed to do – we're supposed to get people clear on their sexual lives?” No, he answered, the primary calling of Christians is “declaring the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, declaring the kingdom of God breaking into history, declaring this revolution that's wrought grace.” “Now an implication of that is, get your sexual lives in order, towards love.” But rather than focusing all one's message on sexual ethics, he declared, “I'd like to widen the lens a little bit.” CNA spoke with Fr. Barron at a Catholic media conference in Denver, shortly after a talk he presented, where discussed the “balloons and banners” era following the Second Vatican Council, when there was a “dumbing down” of catechesis in much of the Church. Asked if he thinks that era is starting to change, he responded, “not enough.” “I worry about that … it needs to change.” The Church needs “a couple of saints, who will really raise up armies of teachers,” Fr. Barron said. The generations of Catholics formed under Benedict XVI and in John Paul II's later years need “to go for advanced studies in philosophy and theology, so they can pass the thing on in a sophisticated way,” he reflected. Going along with this, he said Catholics colleges must “become a breeding ground of Catholic intellectual life,” having professors, not only in philosophy and theology, but all the disciplines, “whose teaching is informed by their faith.” Fr. Barron called it a “tragedy” that so many Catholic universities have “secularized themselves … aping Princeton and Harvard.” He promoted Vatican II's idea that Catholic laypeople are called to be “great Catholics in the world.” Rather than privatizing their faith, Catholics – whether business leaders, politicians, or media personalities – should let that faith inform their “decisions, approach, attitude.” This is “tricky,” he emphasized, saying that “if you're a media person you can't say, 'I'm going to be announcing Jesus Christ risen from the dead as I do the evening news.'” And yet, he calls for the “still unrealized Vatican II vision … of the laity Christifying the world” by refusing to privatize their Catholic faith. Letting faith inform one's decisions in public: “that's evangelization,” Fr. Barron said.

Keep the fire alive

In order to do the Lord’s work, Pope Francis said, we should remember our first encounter with Jesus, in which we were invited to recognize our own sinfulness and experience his loving gaze. “Those who consider themselves righteous, they can cook in their own stew!” the Pope said during morning Mass on July 5. “He came for us sinners and this is beautiful.”Reflecting on a Bible passage in which the tax collector Matthew decides to follow Jesus, he asked those present to remember their first encounter with Christ. Remember always, it is like blowing on the embers of that memory, no? Blowing to keep the fire alive, always,” he said at the chapel of St. Martha. “That memory gives Matthew strength and to all of them to forge ahead: ‘the Lord has changed my life, I met the Lord!’” he added. Pope Francis gave his homily based on the Gospel passage in which Jesus invites Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him. Later in the reading, Pharisees criticize Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners to which he replies, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. The taxpayers were sinners twice because they were attached to money and were also traitors of the country in the sense that they collected taxes from their own people for the Romans,” said the Pope. “Matthew feels Jesus’ gaze upon him and he feels stunned,” he said. “He hears Jesus’ invitation, ‘follow me, follow me.’” According to the Holy Father, Matthew is then “full of joy but he’s also doubtful because he’s also very attached to money. It just took a moment and we see how (the artist) Caravaggio was able to capture it, that man who was looking, but also, with his hands, was taking the money,” he stated. He noted that there is “a moment in which Matthew says yes, leaves everything and goes with the Lord. It is the moment of mercy received and accepted, ‘yes I’m coming with you!’ and it is the first moment of the meeting, a profound spiritual experience,” said Pope Francis. He then reflected on the second part of the reading, during which Jesus eats with the sinners and tax collectors. “The Lord feasts with the sinners. God’s mercy is celebrated,” he said. He explained how the biblical parables talk of those who refuse to take part in the Lord’s feast; that Jesus went out to find the poor and the sick and feasted with them.  “And following these two moments, the stunned encounter and the feast, comes the ‘daily work’ of announcing the Gospel,” he added. The Pope stressed that this work “must be nurtured with the memory of that first encounter, of that feast” and that this work is not just for one moment, but lasts up to the end of one’s life. The strength to do this work, he told the Governorate, comes from the memory of “those events, of that encounter with Jesus who has changed my life, who had mercy!”

Don't be a remote-controlled Catholic

Pope Francis said that Jesus does want Christians to succumb to either extreme of being self-absorbed or overly-dependent. “Jesus wants neither selfish Christians, who follow their egos and do not speak with God, nor weak Christians, without will, 'remote-controlled,'” he said. The latter are “incapable of creativity...seek ever to connect with the will of another, and are not free,” he told the crowds packed into Saint Peter's Square. The Pope based his remarks on Luke 9 which tells how Jesus made the concrete decision to travel to Jerusalem, where he would be crucified. “Jesus, in his earthly life, was not, so to speak, 'remote-controlled,'” he said. “He was the Word made flesh, the son of God made man, and at one point he made a firm decision to go up to Jerusalem for the last time.” During his reflection, Pope Francis also emphasized that Jesus never imposes his will on anyone but “extends invitations,” and “invites us.” The pontiff added that what Jesus wants is for Christians to be free and that the way to do this is through “the inner dialogue with God in conscience.” “If a Christian does not know how to talk with God, does not know how to listen to God, in his own conscience, then he is not free,” he stressed. The Pope underscored that the faithful must learn to listen more to their consciences, but that “this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us.” Conscience, he explained, is “the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God.” “It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful.” In this sense, he observed, Benedict XVI “has given us a great example.” Pope Francis recalled how Benedict had prayed and realized that resigning from the papacy was the step he had to take. “He followed his conscience with a great sense of discernment and courage.” “This example of our father does much good to all of us, as an example to follow.” Concluding his remarks, Pope Francis also touched on Italy's June 30 celebration of the day of Charity of the Pope. “I desire to thank the bishops and all the parishes, especially the poorest ones, for the prayers and offerings that support the many pastoral initiatives and charitable activities of the Successor of Peter in every part of the world,” he said.