Learning to be Quick to Listen

Pope Francis’ homily at the vigil mass for Christmas focused on the importance of Jesus’ incarnation as a real and meaningful event. “The grace which was revealed in our world is Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, true man and true God. He has entered our history; he has shared our journey. He came to free us from darkness and to grant us light,” said the Pope on December 24 at the mass held in St. Peter’s Basilica. “In him was revealed the grace, the mercy, and the tender love of the Father: Jesus is Love incarnate. He is not simply a teacher of wisdom, he is not an ideal for which we strive while knowing that we are hopelessly distant from it. He is the meaning of life and history, who has pitched his tent in our midst.” Happy New Year. May your 2014 be blessed and may God use you to create a better, more peace-filled world.

After a tiring day of work as a construction day laborer, a weary Aurelio was looking forward to seeing his wife, Maria, and their five children in their small, cramped apartment in downtown Los Angeles. But the sight that greeted him when the door opened made his eyes pop with confusion, and later made his heart swell with gratitude: the joyful faces of his entire family surrounded by an avalanche of gifts in their tiny living room, all thanks to Adopt-A-Family. "I was incredulous. I knew they said they were going to help us, but we didn't know they were going to give us so much," Aurelio (last name withheld by request) said later. "We just thank God that it was true," he told The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Adopt-A-Family is a Los Angeles archdiocesan outreach program coordinated by the Mission Office that provides gifts of household essentials and longed-for presents to hundreds of struggling local families with children every December....

Christmas came early for 10-year-old Tora Schneider of Waupaca. On December 14, her Christmas wish to help other children was granted. With the aid of her mother and stepfather, Tora delivered more than 50 wrapped presents to children at Love Life Ministry, located in the basement of a building adjacent to St. Joseph Church in Green Bay. In early December, when Tora wrote her letter to Santa, her request was simple: "All I want for Christmas is for at least 20 kids in need" to receive gifts. So taken aback were her mother, Lora Tankersley, and stepfather, Darick Tankersley, that they did all they could to make Tora's wish come true. "I cried," said Lora. "I was so happy. We have six kids and a foster daughter and for her to be the only one (to make the request), it made my day." It turned out to be a daunting request. It took a few tries to find a place that would accept the gifts Tora wanted to hand out. The family finally learned about Green Bay'...

Pope Francis cautioned Christians not to be overly-critical of those who preach the Gospel, emphasizing that focusing too much on personal precepts keeps us from being happy. Reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading in which Jesus compares the generation to children who are always unhappy or dissatisfied, the Pope stated that “The people of God have a certain allergy to the preachers of the Word: they persecuted the prophets, (even) killed them.” Following the day’s readings, Pope Francis explored the meaning of the Gospel passage, taken from Matthew, explaining that the unhappiness of the people in that generation was because they were “not open to the Word of God.” Their refusal to listen, he noted, had nothing to do with the message, but the messenger, adding that “They reject John the Baptist,” who came “neither eating nor drinking,” saying that he was “a man possessed.” They rejected Jesus, the Pope observed, referring to him as “a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinn...

On this morning's episode of “Today Show” Time Magazine announced their choice of Pope Francis for the 2013 “Person of the Year,” stating that he is changing the “tone and perception” of the Church. Reacting to the news, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi issued a comment, calling it “unsurprising considering the resonance and very widespread attention given to the election of Pope Francis and the beginning of his pontificate. It is a positive sign that one of the most prestigious acknowledgements in the field of the international press has been attributed to one who proclaims spiritual, religious and moral values in the world,” he said, and “who speaks effectively in favor of peace and greater justice.” The Pope, Fr. Lombardi stressed, “does not seek fame and success, since he carries out his service for the proclamation of the Gospel and the love of God for all.” However, noted the spokesman, “If this attracts men and women and gives them hope, the Pope is content. If thi...

While rereading Rick Warren's The Purpose of Christmas, I was reminded how easy it is to forget the reason for the season. Despite the bumper stickers, I still find myself being sucked into the giant "Black Friday-Cyber Monday" vortex. But Rick reminds us that this has happened before. It must have been so bad that God invaded the earth (as Rick says humorously). It's funny but memorable and thought provoking which is what good teachers do. Yes Jesus was sent to let us know how much God loves us. It didn't make any difference that God kept telling his people that they were loved. We don't even have to work for it. God loves us because God is love. But just to give us one more jolt that we could never forget, God sent his son Jesus to save us from our sins. Now Jesus was a lot like other invaders. He spoke a different language that focused on love, forgiveness, and peace. He called us to be meek and love God like little children. He asked his chosen twelve fo...

After a shipwreck off the coast of Nigeria, a 29-year-old man survived three days at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean while constantly reciting a psalm his wife mentioned to him during their last conversation. Harrison Okene was a Nigerian cook on the tugboat Jascon 4, which was one of three vessels pulling an oil tanker. It capsized and sank about 32 kilometers off the coast of Nigeria in late May with its 12 crewmembers aboard. Although the shipwreck occurred in May, a video of the dramatic rescue surfaced this week and was published by the Associated Press on YouTube. The video shows Okene being found alive by divers who were inspecting the shipwreck. Okene was in the bathroom when the boat sank 100 feet to the ocean floor. He was trapped in an air pocket, where he remained for three days reciting a passage from Psalm 54: “Oh God, by your name save me...The Lord sustains my life.” The video captures the moment in which a diver saw the cook's hand and thought it belonged to a dea...

Pope Francis reflected on the season of Christmas, explaining that it is a time to encounter the Lord in faith, and allow him to renew our lives. The Pope said, Christmas, “isn’t just a temporal celebration or the memory of a beautiful (event); Christmas is more…Christmas is an encounter!” As we progress through the season of Advent, “we go by this road to meet the Lord,” the Pope stated, “we walk to meet him,” to “encounter him with the heart, with life; encounter him alive, as He is; encounter him with faith.” Turning to the day's Gospel reading in which the centurion comes to Jesus asking him to heal his servant only by “saying the word,” Pope Francis noted that “it is not easy to live with faith,” emphasizing how in the Gospel the Lord “marveled at this centurion: he marveled at the faith that he had. He had walked to meet the Lord, but he did so with faith. For this reason he not only encountered the Lord, but he felt the joy of being met by the Lord. And this,” the pontiff po...

Pope Francis closed the Year of Faith by calling on people to keep Christ at the center of their lives, especially in times of trouble. "When Jesus is at the center, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope," he said in his homily November 24, the feast of Christ the King. The closing Mass in St. Peter's Square also saw, for the first time, the exposition for public veneration of bones believed to be those of St. Peter. The apostle is believed to have been martyred on a hill overlooking St. Peter's Square and buried a tomb now located two levels below the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica. Eight bone fragments, each two to three centimeters long, were nestled in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar. During the ceremony, the pope -- the 265th successor of Peter -- held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discover...

The devastation brought on by Super Typhoon Haiyan is on a scale so big it is "unimaginable," said Jesuit Father Edwin Gariguez, head of Caritas in the Philippines. "This is beyond our capacity," said Father Gariguez, "that's the reason why we have our Caritas network with us now." When the typhoon hit November 8, the CRS country representative to the Philippines, Joe Curry, was already in Bohol dealing with relief from the October 15 earthquake, so CRS was able to get its assessment teams to Leyte November 10. With about 600,000 people displaced by the storm, the task of getting aid to Filipinos posed a challenge in terms of coordination and the logistics. International aid started began arriving the week of November 10, while local relief began immediately after the typhoon hit. But five days after the storm cut a path of damage that obliterated as many as 90 percent of the houses in some areas, there were still stories of people not receiving an...

Pope Francis has asked Catholic young people around the world to read, meditate and act on the beatitudes as they celebrate World Youth Day in their dioceses in 2014 and 2015 and as they prepare to join him in Poland in 2016. Taking the text of the beatitudes from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Pope Francis has chosen the themes for World Youth Day celebrations for the next three years, the Vatican announced November 7. World Youth Day is celebrated annually on a local level and every two or three years with an international gathering with the pope. At the end of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis announced the next international gathering would be held in Krakow, Poland, in 2016. The annual Rome diocesan celebration with the pope is held on Palm Sunday each year; the date of the celebration in other dioceses varies. But don't wait until then. Urge the youth, and for that matter everyone, in your home parish to adopt the beatitudes to guide their daily liv...

The Archbishop of Denver warned that an increasing rejection of God endangers the foundations of democracy, urging Catholics to embrace the truth of the Gospel and to live it “both personally and publicly. When one does away with God, one embraces, whether knowingly or unknowingly, the father of lies and the evil one,” Archbishop Samuel Aquila said in a recent homily. “If there is no truth and if there is no God that is referenced, it means that we, as human beings, are the ones who decide what is good and what is evil,” he added, warning that the complete rejection of God results not in true freedom and justice, but in “dictatorship” and “totalitarianism.” His homily was delivered at the archdiocesan Red Mass, celebrated at Regis University in Denver. The Red Mass is a more than 700-year-old tradition invoking the Holy Spirit's aid for lawyers, judges, and government officials. Archbishop Aquila drew on Christ’s parable from the Gospel of Luke about the prayers of the self-righteo...

The first ever Filipina-American to be crowned Miss World revealed her traditional values in a recent television interview. Megan Young, the 23 year-old who was crowned Miss World on Sept. 28, said in a recent television interview that she is pro-life, rejecting both abortion and contraception. Young, who was born in Virginia but moved to the Philippines with her family as a child, was interviewed on ANC, a Filipino news network, when she was asked about the country's recent adoption of a reproductive health law, which was signed by president Benigno Aquino III on Dec. 21, 2012. The new law mandates sex education in middle and high schools and subsidizes contraceptives, including potentially abortion-inducing drugs. Young indicated opposition to the law, saying, “I'm pro-life, and if it means killing someone that’s already there, then I’m against that of course. I'm against abortion.” Asked about contraception, she added that, “I don't engage in stuff like that,” going...

During his daily mass homily Pope Francis warned those in attendance against the idolatry present in greedy hearts, stressing that the Lord gives us our gifts for the betterment of the world. “This greed makes you sick, because it makes you think of everything in terms of money. It destroys you,” the Pope told those gathered in the chapel of the Vatican's Saint Martha guesthouse Oct. 21. In his reflections, the pontiff centered on the Gospel passage in which a man approaches Jesus asking him to help resolve a dispute with his brother surrounding their inheritance, stressing that the story illustrates the problems we face in our relationship with money. “This is a day-to-day problem. How many families have we seen destroyed by the problem of money? Brother against brother, father against son. This,” he urged, “is the first result that this attitude of being attached to money does: it destroys! When a person is attached to money, he destroys himself, he destroys the family. It binds ...

When Christianity becomes an ideology rather than a faith based on a relationship with God, its followers become proud and rigid, Pope Francis said. When Christianity becomes an ideology, "Jesus isn't there, nor is his tenderness, love and meekness. And ideologies are always rigid, always," the pope said in a homily at his early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. According to a Vatican Radio report on the homily, Pope Francis said that ideological Christians are "rigid, moralists, ethicists, but without goodness. When a Christian becomes a disciple of an ideology, he has lost his faith; he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, but of this way of thinking," the pope said. Pope Francis was commenting on the day's Gospel reading from Luke (11:47-54) in which Jesus admonishes the scribes and Pharisees for trying to control the faith rather than live it and share it with others. The Gospel reading included the line: "Woe to you, scholars ...

Do you have family or friends who are in pain? They may have been laid off, gotten divorced, experienced the death of a love one or are just beat down by life in general. Every time you see them or speak with them, the conversation is filled with sadness and anguish. It can be exhausting to talk with them but that is just what Jesus calls us to do. I have been reading Max Lucado's latest book You'll Get Through This . In it, he deals with the very situations I described at the beginning of this post; people who have experienced bad things. It brings to mind the question of why God allows this to happen. Lucado seems to think that God is using these bad things to build a stronger you and me. He says that while Satan weaves hate and terror, God reweaves it into good. The Bible tells us in many different places that God will use hardship to sharpen us as Christians. When you look at Paul, Stephen, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus himself, you will realize that people going through hardsh...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s repeated public support for abortion is a “grave sin” that means she should not be admitted to holy Communion, out of concern for her spiritual state, said Cardinal Raymond Burke. Cardinal Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court of appeal other than the Pope, explained that Canon 915 of canon law “must be applied” in Pelosi’s case. That canon states that people who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” should not be admitted to Communion. “This is a person who, obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic,” Cardinal Burke said in a July interview with the Minneapolis-based newspaper The Catholic Servant, republished recently in the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer. “This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith ...

A gathering of researchers and scientists convened in Rome to discuss some of the greatest threats to humanity, identifying the tendency to view persons as less than human as a key factor. “Human beings no longer are looked upon as persons, but as sources of raw material to help those who are the rich and the powerful,” said Dr. Jonathan Haas, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The academy – which works to address “issues in law, in culture, in medicine, in bioethics” – met recently for their annual meeting. Established by Bl. John Paul II, the group aims to promote and defend of human life, especially in the field of bioethics as it regards Christian morality. “It's really a profound commitment to defend the dignity of the human person from the first moment of their conception,” he said. Throughout his time in the field, Dr. Haas has observed that the most pressing life issue of modern times is “not individual specific issues, such as abortion or embryonic stem cell res...

The church needs good catechists, who love Christ, live out the Gospel in their lives and courageously go to the margins of society to share the gift of faith with others, Pope Francis told catechists from around the world. "Let us follow him, imitate him in his dynamic of love, of going to others, and let's go out, open the doors, have the audacity to strike out new paths to proclaim the Gospel," he said in a recent talk that was both improvised and drawn from a text. Seated behind a large wooden desk facing his audience in the Vatican's Paul VI hall, the pope joked that he was going to make just three points, "like the old-time Jesuits used to do: one, two, three," he said to laughter. Many in the audience hall took notes, closely following the pope's words. Hundreds of catechists were in Rome for a three-day international congress hosted by the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. The pope thanked them for their service to the church a...

While Pope Francis’ mention of the Church’s priorities in a recent interview grabbed worldwide attention, few remember that Benedict XVI said substantially the same thing seven years ago. Pope Francis' interview with La Civiltà Cattolica published Sept. 19 led to headlines such as CNN's “Pope Francis says religion does not have the right to interfere spiritually in the lives of gays and lesbians” and the New York Times' “Pope Bluntly Faults Church's Focus on Gays and Abortion.” Among other things, the Roman Pontiff had said that the Church “cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods … when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.” He continued, “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what f...

Catholics should not be indifferent to politics, Pope Francis said, but should offer their suggestions, as well as prayers that their leaders may serve the common good in humility and love. In his September 16 daily homily at Santa Marta, the Pope rejected the idea that “a good Catholic doesn’t meddle in politics. That’s not true. That is not a good path,” he said, according to Vatican Radio. “A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. None of us can say, ‘I have nothing to do with this, they govern,’” Pope Francis told those present for the Mass. Rather, citizens are responsible for participating in politics according to their ability, and in this way are responsible for their leadership. “Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good,” he explained. “I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!” He noted that it is sometimes ...

What God asks of people is too difficult and demanding to do without help from Jesus and Mary, Pope Francis said. People need to lose themselves in the contemplation of Mary's sweetness and Christ's suffering in order to receive the grace necessary to live out God's will, he said in his Sept. 12 morning homily at his residence in the Domus Sanctae Marthae. What God asks of people "is not easy to live out: Love your enemies, do good to them, lend without expecting anything in return, turn the other cheek," he said. "These are tough things, right? We, with our own strength, we can't do it. We cannot do this. Only grace can do it in us," a grace that comes from contemplating Christ, he said.

An Italian pastor has donated a used Renault 4 with 186,000 miles to Pope Francis, in response to the exhortation he made to priests and seminarians in July to live simply and humbly. Father Renzo Roca, 69, who is pastor of St. Lucy Parish in Pescantina, wrote to the Holy Father offering to donate his car, according to news reports out of the Vatican. The car was delivered to the Pontiff on September 7 at St. Martha’s Residence, shortly before the beginning of the Vigil for Peace which the Holy Father led in St. Peter’s Square that evening. “When I gave it to him, we got into the car, but I didn’t have to explain anything to the Pope because he told me that he also used a Renault 4 in Argentina and that it never left him stranded,” Father Roca said. After receiving the car, the Pope rode together with Father Roca to meet with the group of faithful that traveled with him to Rome. During the brief encounter, a young man gave the Pope a t-shirt and Father Roca explained that “n...

As American policymakers debated military intervention in Syria, Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl joined Pope Francis and Catholics around the world in calling for peace and a just solution to the violence that has wracked the country and other parts of the world. "Today we pray for those who are a part of our human family and who endure terrible acts of violence. We also invoke God's blessings on those who strive to contain violence around the world," Cardinal Wuerl said during a special Mass September 7 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. "We ask God to give all of us the strength to walk in the light of God's love and that we might be true agents of human solidarity, justice and true peace." The Mass was one of dozens of liturgies and prayer services across the U.S. in response to Pope Francis' call for a day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria, the Middle East and throughout the world. "As an expression...

While the light of Jesus is powerful enough to cast out demons, it is a peaceful and humble light that helps us carry the cross in our lives, said Pope Francis in a recent homily. “Jesus doesn’t need an army to cast out the demons, he has no need of pride, no need of force, of arrogance,” the Pope said during daily Mass at the chapel of the Saint Martha House. Around 50 people, usually employees from various Vatican departments, are invited to attend each day. Pope Francis took his homily from the Gospel of Luke, which narrates how Jesus cast out demons. The light of Jesus “saves us from darkness,” emphasized the Holy Father, and Christianity is “an identity of light, not of darkness. This Light is not well-liked by the world,” he said. “Today one might think that there is the possibility of having the light with so many scientific things, and so many of the things of humanity. You can know everything, you can have knowledge of all things…but the light of Jesus is something ...

The promotional tour of a recent film on the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe has helped reawaken devotion to the Patroness of the Americas, while inspiring a deeper conversion among Catholics. “We need things that are artistic, that leave impressions, that will help guide people back to our faith,” said Tim Watkins, director of 'The Blood and the Rose'. The film centers around three major aspects of the apparition of the Virgin Mother to St. Juan Diego: the historical background; the apparition itself and Mary’s message; and the scientific analysis of the image on the tilma. “Even though this image was made in 1531, there are still things that we found in the twentieth century that made us go, ‘Oh wow,’” Watkins explained. “It begs the question: what else is in this image that hasn’t been discovered yet?” Careful study and inspection of the image throughout recent history has yielded surprising discoveries about the image, such as the tiny human figures and face...

Pro-life lawmakers issued statements supporting a government decision to investigate the federal funding of Planned Parenthood and other organizations that perform abortions. “The federal government providing funding to abortion providers is a serious problem in our nation,” said Rep. Diane Black (R- Tenn.) in an August 5 statement. She said that she is pleased with the Government Accountability Office’s decision to investigate the use of taxpayer funds by abortion groups. The independent study of how much and for what purpose these dollars are allocated to all abortion providers is necessary for Congress to ensure accountability and oversight, she stressed. Earlier this year, more than 50 members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate how Planned Parenthood and other organizations that promote or perform abortions use federal funds. Black has also sponsored the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would prevent federal funds from be...

Pope Francis denounced consumerism as a poison that threatens true happiness, which comes from membership in the church. The pope made his remarks before praying the Angelus with a noontime crowd in St. Peter's Square. "The encounter with the living Jesus, in the great family that is the church, fills the heart with joy, because it fills it with true life, a profound goodness that does not pass away or decay," he said. "But this experience must face the daily vanity, the poison of emptiness that insinuates itself into our society based on profit and having (things), that deludes young people with consumerism," he said. "Young people are particularly sensitive to the emptiness of meaning and values that surrounds them," he said. "And they, unfortunately, pay the consequences."

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...