Vatican City, May 1, 2019 / 04:19 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday reminded those who think belief in the devil is antiquated or outdated that Satan really exists and that Jesus himself experienced his temptations and overcame them.
“So began the public life of Jesus, with the temptation that comes from Satan. Satan was present,” the pope said May 1.
“Many people say: ‘But why talk about the devil, which is an ancient thing? The devil does not exist.’ But look at what the Gospel teaches you,” Francis emphasized. “Jesus confronted the devil, he was tempted by Satan. But Jesus rejects every temptation and comes out victorious.”
He advised people to remember in their own moments of temptation that “Jesus has already fought this temptation for us.”
The pope spoke about Satan during his weekly audience, where he continued his catechesis on the Our Father with a reflection on the line, “and lead us not into temptation.”
Pope Francis has before been critical of the way the original line has been translated in some languages. Last year the Italian bishops’ conference voted to change the Italian translation of the line to “do not abandon us to temptation.”
The pope commented Wednesday that “the original Greek expression [of this line] contained in the Gospels is difficult to render exactly, and all modern translations are somewhat limping.”
However, it is clear, he continued, that it is not intended to mean God is a tempter: “Christians have nothing to do with an envious God, in competition with man, or [one] who enjoys putting him to the test,” he stated.
Recalling that Jesus himself was tempted and underwent trials during his life, Francis said those words of the prayer which ask God to not leave or abandon his people in their moment of need “have already been answered.”
“God has not left us alone, but in Jesus he manifests himself as ‘God-with-us’ unto the outermost consequences,” he said.
“He is with us when he gives us life, he is with us during life, he is with us in joy, he is with us in trials, he is with us in sadness, he is with us in defeats, when we sin, but he is always with us, because he is a Father and cannot abandon us.”
This, he noted, contrasts with the fallenness of humanity. For example, when the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane during Christ’s agony: “God asks man not to abandon him, and man instead sleeps.”
Pope Francis said that instead, in man’s moment of trial, God keeps watch with them.
“In the worst moments of our life, in the most suffering moments, in the most anguishing moments, God watches with us, God fights with us. Always close to us. Why? Because [he is] a father,” he explained.
This can be a comfort to each person in his or her “hour of trial,” he continued. To know Jesus has already crossed the valley, that it “is no longer desolate, but is blessed by the presence of the Son of God.”
“Thus, we began the prayer: Our Father. A father who does not abandon his children.”
“When this time [of trial] comes for us, show us, Our Father, that we are not alone,” Francis prayed. “Show us that Christ has already taken upon himself the weight of that cross, show us and call us to carry it with him, trusting in the love of the Father.”
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Rome, Italy, Feb 20, 2021 / 11:05 am (CNA).- Pope Francis on Saturday visited the home of the writer and Holocaust survivor Edith Steinschreiber Bruck in Rome.
The 89-year-old Bruck is Hungarian-born, but has lived in Italy since her early 20s. She su… […]
Statuary sits before imagery of the recently canonized saints in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Oct 20, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis canonized 14 new saints on Sunday, including a father of eight and Franciscan friars killed in Syria for refusing to renounce their faith and convert to Islam.
In a Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 20, the pope declared three nineteenth-century founders of religious orders and the eleven “Martyrs of Damascus” as saints to be venerated by the global Catholic Church, commending their lives of sacrifice, missionary zeal, and service to the Church.
“These new saints lived Jesus’ way: service,” Pope Francis said. “They made themselves servants of their brothers and sisters, creative in doing good, steadfast in difficulties, and generous to the end.”
Pope Francis speaks at a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The newly canonized include St. Giuseppe Allamano, a diocesan priest from Italy who founded the Consolata missionary orders, and St. Marie-Léonie Paradis, a Canadian nun from Montreal known for founding an order dedicated to the service of priests.
Also among the saints are St. Elena Guerra, hailed as an “apostle of the Holy Spirit,” and St. Manuel Ruiz López and his seven Franciscan companions, all martyred in Damascus in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
The final three canonized are siblings, Sts. Francis, Mooti, and Raphael Massabki, lay Maronite Catholics martyred in Syria along with the Franciscans.
Thousands of pilgrims prayed the Litany of the Saints together in St. Peter’s Square before Pope Francis declared the 14 as enrolled among the saints “for the honor of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.”
“We confidently ask for their intercession so that we too can follow Christ, follow him in service and become witnesses of hope for the world,” the pope said.
In his homily, Pope Francis highlighted how service embodied the lives of each of the new saints. “When we learn to serve,” he said, “our every gesture of attention and care, every expression of tenderness, every work of mercy becomes a reflection of God’s love. And so we continue Jesus’ work in the world.”
The Gospel for the Mass was chanted in Greek in addition to Latin in honor of the 11 Martyrs of Damascus.
Pilgrims gather in St. Peter’s Square for a Mass and canonization of 14 new saints on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Father Marwan Dadas, a Franciscan friar from Jerusalem, was among those who attended the canonization. He said that the testimony of the martyrs from the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land is especially meaningful to people who are suffering due to the ongoing war and violence in the region today.
“This is a good message to say that even though we have challenges — and it seems we have death continuously — we still have the light of God that is helping us and guiding us through these difficult periods,” Dadas told CNA.
“It’s an important message for me, and I hope it will be the message for all the people of the Holy Land, not only the Holy Land, but for everybody. It is a message from God saying that He is always with us.”
St. Giuseppe Allamano: A missionary heart
One of the most celebrated figures among the new saints is St. Giuseppe Allamano (1851–1926), an Italian diocesan priest who founded the Consolata Missionaries and the Consolata Missionary Sisters. Allamano, though he spent his entire life in Italy, left a global legacy by training missionaries who carried the Gospel to remote corners of Africa, Asia, and South America.
Allamano told the missionaries in the order he founded in northern Italy in 1901 that they needed to be “first saints, then missionaries.”
The medical miracle that led to Allamano’s canonization involved the healing of a man who was attacked by a jaguar in the Amazon rainforest. In 1996, a man named Sorino Yanomami, a member of the indigenous Yanomami tribe in the Amazon, was mauled by a jaguar and left with life-threatening injuries.
As doctors treated his skull fractures, Consolata missionaries prayed in the hospital with a relic of Allamano, seeking his intercession. Miraculously, Yanomami recovered without any long-term damage, according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
Allamano, whose spiritual director was St. John Bosco, emphasized the importance of holiness in priestly life, telling his priests, “You must not only be holy, but extraordinarily holy.” His influence has endured through the orders he founded, present today in 30 countries across the globe.
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis: “Humble among the humble”
St. Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840–1912), a Canadian religious sister, also took her place among the new saints. She founded the Little Sisters of the Holy Family, an order whose spirituality and charism is the support of priests through both prayer and by taking care of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in rectories in “humble and joyful service” in imitation of “Christ the Servant.”
During his homily, Pope Francis praised Paradis’ faith and underlined that “those who follow Christ, if they wish to be great, must serve by learning from Him” who made himself “a servant to reach everyone with his love.”
Born in the Acadian region of Quebec, Paradis also spent eight years in New York serving in the St. Vincent de Paul Orphanage in the 1860s and taught French at St. Mary’s Academy in Indiana, before founding her religious order in New Brunswick, Canada.
Paradis’ canonization was supported by the miraculous healing of a newborn in Canada, attributed to her intercession.
St. Elena Guerra: An “apostle of the Holy Spirit”
Among the canonized was St. Elena Guerra (1835–1914), known for her ardent devotion to the Holy Spirit. Guerra, who founded the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, was instrumental in promoting the first-ever novena to the Holy Spirit under Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Her writings and spiritual leadership inspired many, including St. Gemma Galgani, a mystic and saint who was her student.
For much of her 20s, Guerra was bedridden with a serious illness, a challenge that turned out to be transformational for her as she dedicated herself to meditating on Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. She felt the call to consecrate herself to God during a pilgrimage to Rome with her father after her recovery and went on to form the religious community dedicated to education.
During her correspondence with Pope Leo XIII, Guerra composed prayers to the Holy Spirit, including a Holy Spirit Chaplet, asking the Lord to “send forth your spirit and renew the world.
“Pentecost is not over,” Guerra wrote. “In fact, it is continually going on in every time and in every place, because the Holy Spirit desired to give himself to all men and all who want him can always receive him, so we do not have to envy the apostles and the first believers; we only have to dispose ourselves like them to receive him well, and he will come to us as he did to them.”
The Martyrs of Damascus: Courageous witnesses of faith
The solemnity of the ceremony was heightened as Pope Francis canonized the Martyrs of Damascus, a group of 11 men killed in 1860 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam. The martyrs, including eight Franciscan friars and three laymen, were attacked in a church in the Christian quarter of Damascus during a wave of religious violence.
The canonized Franciscan friars include six priests and two professed religious — all missionaries from Spain except for Father Engelbert Kolland, who was from Salzburg, Austria.
Franciscan Father Manuel Ruiz, Father Carmelo Bolta, Father Nicanor Ascanio, Father Nicolás M. Alberca y Torres, Father Pedro Soler, Kolland, Brother Francisco Pinazo Peñalver, and Brother Juan S. Fernández were all declared saints.
The three laymen were brothers — Francis, Abdel Mooti, and Raphael Massabki — known for their deep piety and devotion to the Christian faith. Francis Massabki, the oldest of the brothers, was a father of eight children. Mooti was a father of five who visited the Church of St. Paul daily for prayer and to teach catechism lessons. The youngest brother, Raphael, was single and was known to spend long periods of time praying in the church and helping the friars.
According to witnesses, the brothers were offered the chance to live if they renounced their faith, but they refused. “We are Christians, and we want to live and die as Christians,” Francis Massabki reportedly said. All 11 were brutally killed that night, some beheaded, others stabbed to death.
“They remained faithful servants,” Pope Francis said. “[They] served in martyrdom and in joy.”
A global celebration
The canonization ceremony was attended by pilgrims from around the world, including Catholics from Kenya, Canada, Uganda, Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. More than 1,000 members of the Consolata order traveled to Rome to witness the canonization of their founder.
And bagpipers from Galicia in northern Spain played traditional music at the end of the Mass to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs.
Bagpipers play to honor the Spanish Franciscans canonized among the Damascus martyrs at the Vatican on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. Credit: Courtney Mares
“I thank all of you who have come to honor the new saints,” Pope Francis said. “I greet the cardinals, the bishops, the consecrated men and women, especially the Friars Minor and the Maronite faithful, the Consolata Missionaries, the Little Sisters of the Holy Family and the Oblates of the Holy Spirit, as well as the other groups of pilgrims who have come from various places.”
Pope Francis led the crowd in the Angelus prayer at the end of the Mass and asked people to pray in particular for the gift of peace for “populations who are suffering as a result of war – tormented Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, tormented Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and all the others.”
The pope also greeted a group of Ugandan pilgrims who traveled from Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs and urged people to pray for missionaries on World Mission Sunday.
“Let us support, with our prayer and our aid, all the missionaries who, often at great sacrifice, bring the shining proclamation of the Gospel to every part of the world,” he said.
“May the Virgin Mary help us to be like her and like the Saints courageous and joyful witnesses of the Gospel.”
Vatican City, Mar 27, 2019 / 07:20 am (CNA).- The ‘daily bread’ asked of God in the ‘Our Father’ is for everyone, and Christians will be judged by how well they shared their gifts with those in need, Pope Francis said Wednesday…. […]
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“We have formed symbolic figures such as the devil to express evil. Social conditioning can also represent this figure, since there are people who act [in an evil way] because they are in an environment where it is difficult to act to the contrary.” Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus
Bergoglio continues to worry about “limping” modern translations. He’s all about “precision”…in the Jesuit sense of that word.
“We have formed symbolic figures such as the devil to express evil. Social conditioning can also represent this figure, since there are people who act [in an evil way] because they are in an environment where it is difficult to act to the contrary.” Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus
Bergoglio continues to worry about “limping” modern translations. He’s all about “precision”…in the Jesuit sense of that word.
Has he ever corrected Sosa? No.