Vatican City, September 2015 (VIS) –
In today's Sunday Angelus the Pope again asked the faithful gathered
in St. Peter's Square for prayers for the Synod on the Family
inaugurated yesterday with Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
“The Synod Fathers, from all over the
world and gathered around St. Peter's Successor will reflect during
these three weeks on the vocation and the mission of the Church in
the Church and in society, for a careful spiritual and pastoral
discernment. We will keep our gaze fixed on Jesus in order to find,
on the basis of His teaching of truth and mercy, the most appropriate
routes for adequate commitment on the part of the Church, with
families and for families, so that the Creator's original plan for
man and woman may be implemented and may operate in all its beauty
and strength in today's world”.
In this sense, the reading of the Book
of Genesis on complementarity and reciprocity between the man and
woman who unite and become one flesh, “that is, one life, one
existence”, and in this way “transmit their life to new human
beings: they become parents. They participate in the creative power
of God Himself. But”, he warned, “be careful! God is love, and
one participates in His work when one loves with and like Him. …
And this is also the love that is given to spouses in the Sacrament
of marriage. It is the love that nurtures their relationship, through
joy and suffering, in moments of serenity and difficulty. It is the
love that awakens the desire to create children, to wait for them,
welcome them, raise them and educate them. It is the same love that,
in today's Gospel, Jesus reveals to the children: 'Let the children
come to me, do not prevent them'.
“Today we ask the Lord that all
parents and educators in the world, as in society as a whole, are
made instruments of that acceptance and love with which Jesus
embraces the little ones. He looks into their hearts with the
tenderness and care of a father and, at the same time, a mother. I
think of so many children that are hungry, abandoned, exploited,
forced into the war, refused. It is painful to see images of children
that are unhappy, looking lost, fleeing from poverty and conflicts.
They are knocking on our doors and our hearts begging for help. May
the Lord help us not to be a 'fortress-society,' but rather a
'family-society' which welcomes – with the proper rules -but always
welcomes with love”.
The Pope concluded by invoking the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the Synod Fathers and the
intercession of the Virgin Mary, uniting with those who today,
Italian Shrine of Pompeii, pray the traditional supplication to the
Our Lady of the Rosary.
Following the Angelus, Francis
mentioned the beatification yesterday in Santander, Spain, of Pio
Heredia and seventeen companions of the Cistercian Order of the
Strict Observance of St. Bernard, killed in hatred of the faith
during the Spanish civil war and the religious persecution of the
1930s. “Let us praise the Lord for their courageous witness, and
with their intercession, let us beg that He liberate the world from
the scourge of war”.
He prayed for the victims of a
landslide that swept away an entire village in Guatemala, and of the
flood in the Cote d'Azur in France, and urged concrete acts of
solidarity in their support. He also affectionately greeted Italian
pilgrims on the feast day of the their patron, St. Francis of Assisi.
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