Pope Tells 3 Ways to Know Christ at Morning Mass... from ZENIT of Roswell, Georgia, United States for Thursday, 20 October 2016

Pope Tells 3 Ways to Know Christ at Morning Mass... from ZENIT of Roswell, Georgia, United States for Thursday, 20 October 2016
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Pope Tells 3 Ways to Know Christ at Morning Mass by Deborah Castellano Lubov

Catechism is not enough, we must pray to know Jesus.
According to Vatican Radio, Pope Francis urged faithful to do this during his daily morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, drawing from St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today where the Apostle prayed that they may be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit and that Christ may dwell in their hearts.
In the reading, Paul speaks of the richness that is found in really knowing the person of Christ, and in today’s homily, Pope Francis expressed the three requirements we must meet to really know Him, too.
Requirement 1: Prayer
“How can we know Christ,”Pope Francis asked. “How can we understand His love that is beyond all knowledge?”
Francis affirmed that Christ is present in the Gospel and we know Him, by reading the Gospel, or when we hear it at Mass. “And studying the catechism teaches us who Christ is,” he said.
“But this is not enough,” Francis said, noting, “In order to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of Jesus Christ we need to enter into the habit, firstly of praying, as Paul did on his knees: “Father send me the Holy Spirit to know Jesus.”
Requirement 2: Worship, Adoration
In order to truly know Christ, the Pope stressed that prayer on its own is not enough.
As Paul said, Francis recalled, in addition to praying, Paul “worshipped the mystery” that is beyond our knowledge and in this spirit of worship or adoration he asks for this grace from the Lord.
“We cannot know the Lord without this habit of worship, to worship in silence, adoration. If I am not mistaken, I believe that this prayer of adoration is the least known by us, it’s the one that we do least. Allow me to say this, waste time in front of the Lord, in front of the mystery of Jesus Christ. Worship him. There in silence, the silence of adoration. He is the Saviour and I worship Him.”
Requirement 3: Accuse Ourselves
Pope Francis said the third requirement for truly knowing Christ was to know ourselves and as a result be accustomed to describing ourselves as sinners.
“We cannot worship without accusing ourselves,” he said. “In order to enter into this bottomless and boundless sea that is the mystery of Jesus Christ, this thing is necessary. (Firstly), prayer: ‘Father, send me the Holy Spirit so that he leads me to know Jesus.’ Secondly, worship the mystery, enter into the mystery and worship Him. And thirdly, accuse ourselves. ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’
Pope Francis concluded, praying “the Lord give us too this grace that Paul implored for the Ephesians, this grace to know and earn Christ.”
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FEATURE: Jesuits’ New Superior General Is Ready to Respond With Joy by Deborah Castellano Lubov

The new Superior General of the Jesuits says he is ready to respond to his new appointment with joy.
Fr. Arturo Sosa expressed this at a press conference in the Jesuit Headquarters in Rome, on Tuesday morning to discuss his election last week by Jesuits from around the world who are meeting in Rome for their 36th General Congregation.
This marks the 36th congregation since St. Ignatius of Loyola foundedthe Society of Jesus half a milennium ago. With at least 17,000 priests and brothers worldwide, the Jesuits are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, and they play many important roles throughout the Church and society, especially in education.
Jesuits take four vows, the first three being poverty, chastity and obedience, and the fourth being “obedience specifically in regard to worldwide mission.”
Speaking to the press, Fr. Sosa was very friendly and humble as he responded to various questions about his election, plans, and opinions.
Right away, the 68-year-old Venezuelan acknowledged that all journalists were wondering how he was following the election, and noted, he is well, calm, surprised and joyful about being chosen for the responsibility.
When one journalist asked why he believed he was elected, he humbly responded, he didn’t know why, and to find out, one needs to ask those who voted.
The new Superior General of the Jesuits thanked his Spanish predecessor, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, who will return to the Philippines as a missionary, and will be serving as the East Asian Pastoral Institute’s Spiritual Director.
Regarding Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Pope, Fr. Sosa noted they met in 1983 during the Jesuits’ 33rd General Congregation. He explained that they got to know each other better at other events, such as in Argentina while Bergoglio was serving as Archbishop or in Rome, after 2014. He stressed they have had a long and positive relationship and that with Francis, it is easy to enter into an “immediate communication.”
The first non-European to be elected as the Jesuit Superior General also was asked what attracted him to the Jesuit order.
“I can give a very simple answer,” he said. “Everything.”
“What, from any early age, attracted me to them [the Jesuits] from an early age was that they are an apostolic power in many areas.”
“The Jesuits have this great wealth: a spirituality that puts you in contact with Jesus, and with concrete situations throughout the world,” he said.
Responding about his plans for the Society of Jesus for the years to come, the new Jesuit leader said that some of the main priorities include tackling poverty, helping migrants and refugees, and interreligious dialogue.
Fr. Sosa was also asked his views about Venezuela’s political crisis. Lamenting that the government under Colombia-born, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the opposition have failed to have effective dialogue, he stressed that his home country is in a state of “serious suffering,” especially given declining oil revenues and lack of political accord.
Fr. Sosa also did address his being called the ‘black pope,’ saying, “I don’t like it.”
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President of Burkino Faso Visits Pope by ZENIT Staff

Pope Francis received today in audience, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.
According to a statement released by the Holy See Press Office, the discussions were “cordial” and “the existing good relations between the Holy See and Burkina Faso were evoked.”
Special attention, it stated, was given to the important contribution the Church offers in the fields of education and healthcare.
“In this framework,” he said, “the hope was expressed that bilateral relations can be consolidated thanks also to the legal tools provided by international law. Attention then turned to the importance of national reconciliation, respect and collaboration between the various religious groups, and the theme of young people and employment.”
Finally, there was an exchange of views on some issues of international interest, with particular reference to the current challenges affecting the region.
The President subsequently met with Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, accompanied by His Excellency Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States.
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Pope’s Address to Order of Augustinian Recollects by ZENIT Staff

Below is a ZENIT working translation of the Pope’s address to participants of the 55th General Chapter of the Order of Augustinian Recollects in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace this morning:
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Dear Brothers: I welcome you and thank the Father General for the kind words he addressed to me on behalf of the whole Family of Augustinian Recollects. And as he himself said, you have taken as the motto for this 55th General Chapter a prayer that comes from the depth of Saint Augustine’s heart: “All our hope is in your mercy. Give us what you command and command what you will” (Confessions, 10, 29, 40).
This invocation leads us to be men of hope, namely, with horizons, capable of putting all our trust in God’s mercy, conscious that we are incapable of addressing, with our strength alone, the challenges that the Lord presents to us. We know that we are little and unworthy; but our security and joy is in God. He never disappoints and He it is who leads us by mysterious paths with a Father’s love.
In this General Chapter, you have wished to review and place before God the life of the Order, with its yearnings and challenges, so that it is He who gives you light and hope. To seek renewal and impetus it is necessary to turn to God and to ask Him: “Give us what you command.We ask for the new commandment that Jesus gave us: “That you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34). It is what we implore Him to give us: His love so that we are capable of loving. God gives us this love in many ways; God is always giving us this love and He makes himself present in our life. We look at the past and give thanks for the many gifts received. And we make this historical review by the hand of the Lord, because it is He who gives us the key to interpret it. It is not just about making history, but about discovering the Lord’s presence in each event, in every step of life. The past helps us to return again to the charism, and to relish it in all its freshness and integrity. It also gives us the possibility to underscore the difficulties that have arisen and how they have been surmounted, to be able to address the present challenges, looking to the future. This path beside Jesus will become a prayer of thanksgiving and interior purification.
The memory, grateful for His love in our past, spurs us to live the present with passion and in an ever more courageous way; then we can ask Him: “Command what you will.” To ask for this implies freedom of spirit and availability. To let oneself be commanded by God means that He is the Master of our life and there is no other. And we know well that, if God does not have the place that corresponds to Him, others will do so for Him. And when the Lord is at the center of our life everything is possible; failure or any other evil does not count, because it is He who is at the center, and it is He who directs us.
He asks us at this moment in a special way to be His “creators of communion.” We are called to create, with our presence in the midst of the world, a society capable of recognizing the dignity of every person and of sharing the gift that each one is to the other. With our testimony of a living and open community to what the Lord commands us, through the breath of His Spirit, we will be able to respond to the needs of each person with the same love with which God has loved us. So many people are waiting for us to go out to encounter them and to look at them with that tenderness that we have experienced and received from our relation with God. This is the power we bear; not the one of our own ideals and projects, but the strength of His mercy, which transforms and gives life.
Dear Brothers, I invite you to maintain Saint Augustine’s dream with a renewed spirit, to live as brothers, “with one heart and one soul” (Rule1,2), which reflects the ideal of the first Christians and is a living prophecy of communion in this world of ours, so that there is no division, no conflicts or exclusion, but concord reigns and dialogue is promoted.
I place under the protection of our Mother, the Virgin Mary, the Order’s intentions and plans; may she guide and protect you. And do not forget to pray for me, and transmit my blessing to all the family of Augustinian Recollects. Thank you very much.[Original text: Spanish] [Translation by ZENIT]
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4th Annual Lottery for Pope’s Charities to Be Held by ZENIT Staff

Once again, there will be an annual lottery on behalf of the Holy Father’s charities.
In a statement today, the Vatican made this announcement, noting this initiative of solidarity, which reaches its fourth year, coincides with the end of the Jubilee Year of Mercy and the Christmas festivities, a particularly propitious time for a gesture of sharing.
The Pope has personally made some prizes available, expressing the desire that the proceeds be allocated in part, to the homeless, and in part, to the populations of Central Italy affected by the earthquake ofAug. 24.The lottery will begin in the forthcoming weeks and will end onFeb. 2, 2017, with the drawing of the winning tickets, in the presence of a commission set up for the purpose of guaranteeing its correctness.
The tickets, each costing 10 euros, will go on sale in the Vatican in the pharmacy, post offices, the telephone services, the ‘Annona’ and ‘Station’ stores, sales areas of the Philatelic and Numismatic Office and the bookshops of the Vatican Museums.
The novelty this year is that anyone who wishes to participate can, without even having to go to the Vatican. In fact, thanks to the efforts of the Directorate of Communications – Vatican Internet Service Provider and of the Accounting Directorate, it will be possible to acquire tickets online, on the site www.vaticanstate.va.
For all other information, contact the Events Coordinator of the Governorate of Vatican City State: eventi@scv.va.
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The Polish National Pilgrimage to Rome October 20-23 by Paweł Rytel-Andrianik

The most recent National Pilgrimage took place in 2003, in thanksgiving for the 25 years of the pontificate of St. John Paul II. This time, Poles are coming to thank Pope Francis for his visit to Poland and the World Youth Day, and in the context of the celebrations of the 1050th anniversary of Poland’s Baptism and the Year of Mercy.
“We must thank God and the Holy See for all the events held recently in Poland that brought so much joy to the Poles,” said Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki, President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference and Vice-President of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE).
According to preliminary estimates, nearly 50 bishops, 260 priests and 7,000 faithful will take part in the Polish National Pilgrimage to Rome for thanksgiving. The program of the pilgrimage, which is the same for all, includes Masses in four patriarchal basilicas, an audience with the Holy Father, and the Angelus prayer. Audience with Pope Francis will take place Saturday, Oct. 22, on the liturgical feast of Saint John Paul II.
The National Pilgrimage fits perfectly into the celebration schedule of the Year of Mercy and the 1050th anniversary of Poland’s Baptism, which brought the Poles into Western Europe’s ambit of faith and culture.
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Holy See’s Remarks In Quito, Ecuador: A Common Home Where Everybody Can Live With Dignity by Deborah Castellano Lubov

Below is the text of the remarks of Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), High Level Roundtable Session on “Adequate and Affordable Housing” in Quito, Ecuador, on Oct. 17-18. The remarks were published on The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nation website:
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Remarks by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza
Head of the Delegation of the Holy See to the
United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III)
“A Common Home Where Everybody can Live with Dignity”
Conference sponsored by Caritas Internationalis
Quito, 17 October 2016
Distinguished Panelists, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to convey to you the best wishes and cordial greetings of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, who follows with keen interest this United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, for the obvious reason that it talks about how urban dwellers can live in dignity and harmony.
As we know very well, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development contains 17 goals, 169 targets, with 250 indicators added by experts to measure the progress and achievement of those goals and targets.
Pope Francis makes it much simpler and easier to remember. In several discourses and speeches, the Holy Father reduces to four points the essential material and spiritual means that are necessary for everyone to live with dignity. These are three “Ts” in Spanish – tierra, techo y trabajo, or the three “Ls” in English, land, lodging and labor — and the fourth means, what he calls spiritual freedom.
Pope Francis articulated all of these points on 25 September 2015 when in his Address to the United Nations General Assembly on 25 September 2015, he urged all government leaders to “do everything possible to ensure that all can have the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity and to create and support a family, which is the primary cell of any social development. In practical terms, this absolute minimum has three names: lodging, labour, and land; and one spiritual name: spiritual freedom, which includes religious freedom, the right to education and all other civil rights.”
Pope Francis gave a comprehensive sketch of the essential components for what he called in his Encyclical Laudato Si’ “integral development,” which incorporates human, social, economic and environmental development.
The first is the minimal material goods necessary. Pope Francis stressed that governments need to do “everything possible” to ensure that all can have the minimal material means to live in dignity and create and support a family, which he emphasized is the “primary cell” of any social development. This absolute material minimum are “techo, trabajo y tierra” or “lodging, labor and land.”
Thus the simplest and best way to evaluate the implementation of the 2030 Development Agenda will be to evaluate whether people have access to “housing, dignified and properly remunerated employment, adequate food and drinking water,” and more generally to the “right to life.”
The second essential component is access to what he called “spiritual” goods, which includes religious freedom, spiritual freedom and education. Part of these spiritual goods is to allow people to be “dignified agents of their own destiny.” The Holy Father stressed that “integral human development and the full exercise of human dignity cannot be imposed. They must be built up and allowed to unfold for each individual, for every family, in communion with others, and in a right relationship with all those areas in which human social life develops – friends, communities, towns and cities, schools, businesses and unions, provinces, nations, etc.”
These are the essential elements for everyone to live with and in dignity, whether they live in the villages or in megacities.
The key to realizing this objective of giving all the possibility of living with dignity is to make the human person the center of all. This historic meeting in Quito therefore has the enormous challenge to redefine the urban paradigm towards an urban renewal that is centered on the human person, founded on a long-term vision and grounded in the interconnected dimensions of integral human and sustainable development, as well as on what Pope Francis, in his Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, defines as “integral ecology.”
This side event, with its theme “A common home where everybody can live in dignity,” takes up this challenge to ensure that all urban dwellers can live in dignity, so that our cities will be places where no one is left behind, and so that, despite increasing pressures of all sorts, our urban centers will be drivers of integral human and sustainable development. Given the increasing role of cities as places of where peoples live and work, it must then play a central role in the efforts to guarantee the minimum spiritual and material means for people to live in dignity of which the Holy Father has talked much about.
The challenge is, indeed, daunting and becomes even more so everyday, as people are moving to the cities in such numbers that cities are turning into megacities, causing an increasing number of people to live in urban slums and informal settlements and to experience considerable difficulties in having access to the minimum spiritual and material means needed to live in dignity. Those in these situations risk losing their sense of self-worth and the respect of their own dignity. They risk finding themselves trapped in a vicious circle of extreme poverty and marginalization.
Thank you for your commitment to work especially in favor of those left behind in urban slums and precarious settlements. Any urban action agenda can only be successful if actions include them in decision-making and implementation and if tangible benefits reach them in a meaningful way, in a way they all can live with dignity.
In the name of Pope Francis, thank you for your work in facing this challenge.[Courtesy of The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nation]
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Holy See’s Statement from Habitat III: High Level Roundtable Session on “Adequate and Affordable Housing” by ZENIT Staff

Below is the text of the address given by Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), High Level Roundtable Session on “Adequate and Affordable Housing” in Quito, Ecuador, on Oct. 18. The remarks were published on The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nation website:
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Remarks by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito AUZA
Head of the Delegation of the Holy See
United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III)
High Level Roundtable Session on “Adequate and Affordable Housing”
Quito, 18 October 2016
Mr. Chair,
International human rights law recognizes everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing. The right to housing is not only part of the right to an adequate standard of living, as mentioned in article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but, more generally, it is part of the right to life and, more specifically, the right to live with dignity.
Despite of the central place of this right in the global legal system, too many people are still not adequately housed, living in unsanitary slums or in dangerous tenements: today there are so many homeless families, either because they have never had a home or because, for different reasons, they have lost it. Indeed, family and housing go hand in hand.
All efforts have to be done by governments together with the intermediate bodies – in respect of the principle of subsidiarity – to foster the fulfillment of the fundamental right to housing. Often state budgets cover only a small portion of the demand for housing. Thus public and private sectors, state and social organizations must join their efforts to ensure the realization of the three pillars of integral human development that Pope Francis often speaks of: namely, the three “Ls” in English – land, lodging and labor – or the three “Ts” in Spanish – tierra, techo y trabajo. The principles of subsidiarity and solidarity must come into play to allow the common good to be achieved in a full and participatory democracy.
The full and progressive realization of the right to adequate and affordable housing has much to do with the respect for the intrinsic and inviolable dignity of the human person. Indeed, having a home is much more than having a roof over one´s head; it has much to do with a sense of personal dignity and the growth of families.
Moreover, in facing the housing problem at the international, national and local level, preference must be given to the more vulnerable categories of society in compliance with the preferential option for the poor. Housing is not accessible to so many people, including the disabled, the elderly, the refugees, the migrants and, very often, children. The Holy See hopes strongly that this gathering in Quito will respond to the very concrete desire of any father and of any mother who wants a house, or better, a home, for their children!
Pope Francis urges us all to keep people first in all housing projects and project implementation, so that all families have a place to call home and neighborhoods have adequate infrastructure and basic services, enabling them to live with dignity.
Thank you.[Courtesy of The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nation]
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