Frontpage

I would like to ask, together with you, through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, for the gift of peace for all peoples. I ask this in particular for this great region of the world, Asia, Oceania and the Pacific Ocean. Peace, peace for the Nations and also for creation.

Pope Francis

Today I begin an Apostolic Journey to several countries in Asia and Oceania (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore). Please pray that this journey may bear fruit.

Pope Francis

Let us think of our catechists who do so much work and, in some parts of the world, are the first to bring the faith forward. Let us pray today for catechists, that the Lord may make them courageous and that they may continue.

Pope Francis

Let us pray together for Humanitarian Workers, especially for those who have died or been injured while helping people affected by wars and disasters. Humanitarians show that we can be “fratelli tutti” by taking care of others.

Pope Francis

The coming months will lead us to the opening of the Holy Door, with which we will begin the Jubilee. I ask you to intensify your prayer to prepare us to live well this event of grace, and to experience the strength of God’s hope. Therefore, today we begin the Year of Prayer; that is, a year dedicated to rediscovering the great value and absolute need for prayer in personal life, in the life of the Church, and in the world.

Pope Francis

Good Father, the cry of the earth strikes in the Heart of your Son Jesus, and cries out to us “I want mercy and not sacrifices”. Our Common Home implores us a bold and radical change in our way of life. We need courage, and a holy indignation to commit ourselves to a cultural change that welcomes the cry of the earth and the poor. We need the fire of your Holy Spirit to burn in our hearts, to contemplate and give thanks, to welcome and to care, so that we may all feel as one in you. May our gestures of love and care for everyone and everything, rise up to You as a universal prayer of adoration, Of thanksgiving and forgiveness. May our daily living reflect a temperate, and modest lifestyle that moderates how excessively greedy we tend to be with the world and each other. May we embrace this cry for help transforming it with our decisions into a loving and consoling melody. Amen.

Jesus, contemplating you in the Gospel makes us tremble, walk and be with you. We see you speaking with authority, taking comfort and clarity to the hearts, serving on your knees and welcoming all, washing the disciples’ feet, you taught us to share loaves and fishes to feed one another. You told us that, if we want to be first, we should learn to be last. You gave us an example of care and respect for women and children, the fragile ones of your time. Give to the politicians who lead your people, a heart like yours, so that they may perform their political task as a mission at the service of your sons and daughters, with self-sacrifice, dedication and gratuity. May they give priority to the most fragile, and put them at the center above all other interest. Amen.

Loving Father, who welcomes all your sons and daughters: We pray to you today for the migrants who flee from war or hunger.

May they find welcome and new opportunities in the countries that receive them. For hospitality is an expression of love, of that dynamism of openness that inspires us to pay attention to others, to seek the best for their lives.

But we know that immigrants are often seen as usurpers who have nothing to offer, and so this leads to the simplistic belief that the poor are dangerous and useless while the powerful are generous benefactors.

Teach us to be a Church as a “field hospital”. to live an ever better way of welcoming, to promote a culture of welcome, that protects and integrates; to think and develop an open world, to not judge the usefulness of the person, but to see the value in itself that the person represents.

And that the different countries of the world be able to think not only as a country, but also as a human family, because only a social and political culture that incorporates gratuitous acceptance can have a future. Amen

As I head off to my Pilgrimage and Journeying ‘experiment’ starting in Ponte de Barca, I reflect on the whirlwind of activities that has happened that past couple of days. In particular, I reflect on my experiences of my pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima. Fatima is a place … Read moreIn the Midst of Fatima: An Expression of Church Universal