GENERAL AUDIENCE: GOD IS NOT INDIFFERENT TO OUR SUFFERING

VATICAN CITY, NOV 12, 2003 (VIS) - Psalm 141, 'You are my refuge,' was the theme of the Pope's catechesis during this Wednesday's general audience celebrated in St. Peter's Square.

Addressing the crowd of 12,000 people, John Paul said that this psalm was the last prayer recited by St. Francis of Assisi on the night of his death in 1226. 'It is an intense supplication, marked by a series of invocations to the Lord: 'I cry to you O Lord, give heed to my cry'. ' The central part of the psalm is dominated by faith in God who is not indifferent to the suffering of the faithful.'

The psalmist, he continued, invokes God with insistence 'in the face of anguish' and begs Him to intervene by 'breaking the chains of his prison of solitude and hostility and saving him from the abyss of trial and tribulation.'

'As in other psalms of petition, the final perspective is one of thanksgiving that will be offered to God after He has heard the supplicant's prayer. ' When he is saved, the faithful will approach the Lord to give thanks in the liturgical assembly.'

The Holy Father concluded by indicating that 'the Christian tradition sees this psalm as a reference to the persecuted and suffering Christ. In this way, the hopeful goal of the psalm's petition becomes a paschal sign on the foundation of the glory of the life of Christ and of our destiny of resurrection with Him.'

AG;PSALM 141;...;@ ;VIS;20031112;Word: 250;