By Cindy WoodenCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY — The day after Pope Francis paid a brief visit to Rome’s Gemelli…
Pope Francis
Life as a parish priest is a “Eucharistic adventure” that involves serving God’s people under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis told transitional deacons.
This Lent, Christians should become “seekers of light” by keeping their sights set on the light of Jesus through prayer and participating in the sacraments, Pope Francis said.
The Catholic Church’s focus for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees 2024 highlights its need to walk alongside displaced persons and to convey to them God’s presence and guidance along their paths, the Vatican said.
During Lent, Pope Francis said, Catholics — and especially Catholic seminarians — should rediscover the joy of simplicity, pay less attention to their appearance than to their prayer lives and make a special effort to get along with everyone they live with.
St. María Antonia de Paz Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, devoted herself completely to helping others experience God’s closeness and compassion, Pope Francis said after he declared the 18th-century consecrated laywoman a saint. By letting her heart and life be “touched” and “healed” by Christ, he said, “she proclaimed him tirelessly her whole life long, for she was convinced, as she loved to repeat: ‘Patience is good, but perseverance is better.'”
Christians should look to Argentina’s soon-to-be saint to learn how to live charitably in an age of individualism, Pope Francis said.
The fight against human trafficking can be won, but it requires eliminating the root causes of the problem, Pope Francis said. Calling for action, the pope appealed for the mobilization of “all our resources in combating trafficking and restoring full dignity to those who have been its victims,” he said in a written message for International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking, observed Feb. 8.
Mission is tirelessly going out to all men and women to invite them with respect, joy and kindness, to encounter God and enter into communion with him, Pope Francis wrote in his message for World Mission Sunday.
A television or radio network that calls itself Catholic must help people overcome their prejudices, seek the truth with charity and build bridges between people, Pope Francis said.