Learning to be Quick to Listen

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 ...

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 "punct...

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,...

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...

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 col...

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 w...