PAPAL MESSAGESTHIS WEEKMONTHLY INTENTIONSIN THE NEWS

Pope Francis

March 13, 2013 – Present

FEBRUARY 3, 2019

Admiration Turned Into Aggression

Jesus’ public ministry begins with a rejection and with a death threat, paradoxically precisely on the part of his fellow citizens.

Jesus, with his ability to penetrate minds and hearts, immediately understands what his fellow countrymen think. They believe that, since he is one of them, he must demonstrate his strange “claim” by working miracles there, in Nazareth, as he did in neighbouring countries (cf. v. 23). But Jesus does not want and cannot accept this logic, because it does not correspond to God’s plan: God wants faith, they want miracles, signs; God wants to save everyone, and they want a Messiah for their own benefit. And to explain the logic of God, Jesus gives the example of two great ancient prophets: Elijah and Elisha, whom God had sent to heal and save non-Hebrew people, and other peoples, but who had trusted in his word.

JANUARY 31, 2016

The Temptation to Consider Religion as a Human Investment

No human condition can constitute a reason for exclusion

This passage of Luke the Evangelist is not simply the account of an argument between compatriots, as sometimes happens even in our neighbourhoods, arising from envy and jealousy, but it highlights a temptation to which a religious man is always exposed — all of us are exposed — and from which it is important to keep his distance. What is this temptation? It is the temptation to consider religion as a human investment and, consequently, “negotiate” with God, seeking one’s own interest. Instead, true religion entails accepting the revelation of a God who is Father and who cares for each of his creatures, even the smallest and most insignificant in the eyes of man. Jesus’ prophetic ministry consists precisely in this: in declaring that no human condition can constitute a reason for exclusion — no human condition can constitute a reason for exclusion! — from the Father’s heart, and that the only privilege in the eyes of God is that of not having privileges, of not having godparents, of being abandoned in his hands.

Pope Benedict XVI

April 19, 2005 – February 28, 2013

FEBRUARY 3, 2013

Giving Up Our Prejudices

Believing in God means giving up our own prejudices

Jesus did not come to seek the agreement of men and women but rather — as he was to say to Pilate in the end — “to bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). The true prophet does not obey others as he does God, and puts himself at the service of the truth, ready to pay in person. It is true that Jesus was a prophet of love, but love has a truth of its own. Indeed, love and truth are two names of the same reality, two names of God.

In today’s liturgy these words of St Paul also ring out: “Love is not… boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right” (1 Cor 13:43-6). Believing in God means giving up our own prejudices and accepting the actual face in which he revealed himself: Jesus of Nazareth the man. And this process also leads to recognizing him and to serving him in others.

JANUARY 31, 2010

The Hymn to Love

Love is the essence of God himself, it is the meaning of creation and of history,…

In this Sunday’s Liturgy we read one of the most beautiful passages of the New Testament and of the whole Bible: the Apostle Paul’s “hymn to love” (1 Cor 12: 31-13: 13). In his First Letter to the Corinthians, after explaining through the image of the body that the different gifts of the Holy Spirit contribute to the good of the one Church, Paul shows the “way” of perfection. It does not, he says, consist in possessing exceptional qualities: in speaking new languages, understanding all the mysteries, having a prodigious faith or doing heroic deeds. Rather, it consists in love agape that is, in authentic love which God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Love is the “greatest gift” which gives value to all the others and yet it “is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant”; on the contrary it “rejoices in the right” and in the good of others. Whoever truly loves “does not insist on [his or her] own way”, “is “not irritable or resentful” but “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (cf. 1 Cor 13: 4-7). In the end, when we find ourselves face to face with God, all the other gifts will no longer matter; the only one that will last forever is love, because God is love and we will be like him, in perfect communion with him.

DECEMBER 25, 2005

DEUS CARITS EST

Those Responsible for the Church’s Charitable Action

Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man

Saint Paul, in his hymn to charity (cf. 1 Cor 13), teaches us that it is always more than activity alone: “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (v. 3). This hymn must be the Magna Carta of all ecclesial service; it sums up all the reflections on love which I have offered throughout this Encyclical Letter. Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.

Pope Saint John Paul II

October 16, 1978 – April 2, 2005

OCTOBER 20, 1999

GENERAL AUDIENCE

The Primacy of Love

Only those who are involved with their neighbour and his needs concretely show their love for Jesus.

The hymn to love contained in the First Letter to the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor 13) celebrates this primacy of love over all the other gifts (cf. vv. 1-3), and even over faith and hope (cf. v. 13). The Apostle Paul says of it: “Love never ends” (v. 8).

Love of neighbour has a Christological connotation, since it must conform to Christ’s gift of his own life: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3: 16). Insofar as it is measured by Christ’s love, it can be called a “new commandment” by which the true disciples may be recognized: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13: 34-35). The Christological meaning of love of neighbour will shine forth at the second coming of Christ. Indeed at that very moment, it will be seen that the measure by which to judge adherence to Christ is precisely the daily demonstration of love for our neediest brothers and sisters: “I was hungry and you gave me food …” (cf. Mt 25: 31-46).

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