Vatican City, May 19, 2019 / 05:56 am (CNA).- The boundless love with which Jesus Christ loves each and every person is the same love Catholics are compelled to show their “enemies,” Pope Francis said Sunday.
Speaking during his address before the recitation of the Regina Coeli prayer May 19, the pope asked people to answer a question in their hearts: “Am I capable of loving my enemies?”
“We all have people – I do not know if they are enemies – but that do not agree with us, who are ‘on the other side,’” he said.
“Or does anyone have people who hurt them,” he added, urging people to ask themselves: “Am I capable of loving those people? That man, that woman who hurt me, who offended me? Am I able to forgive him?”
It is the love of Jesus for us that makes the act of loving and forgiving others possible, he said, reflecting on the moment at the Last Supper, when, after washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus gives them a “new” commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
“Jesus loved us first,” Pope Francis said. “He loved us despite our frailties, our limitations and our human weaknesses. It was He who made us become worthy of his love that knows no limits and never ends.”
“The love that is manifested in the cross of Christ and that He calls us to live is the only force that transforms our heart of stone into a heart of flesh,” he stated. “The only force capable of transforming our heart is the love of Jesus, if we also love with this love.”
“And this love makes us capable of loving our enemies and forgiving those who have offended us.”
Francis noted that the commandment to love one another, when Jesus gave it, was not novel, but that what made it “new” was the part which says, “as I have loved you.”
Speaking shortly before his Crucifixion and death, Jesus showed his disciples the origin and example of the kind of love people are called to give.
“The novelty is all in the love of Jesus Christ, the one with which he gave his life for us. It is a question of the love of God, universal, without conditions and without limits, which finds its apex on the cross.”
“In that moment of extreme lowering, in that moment of abandonment to the Father, the Son of God has shown and given to the world the fullness of love,” he said.
May the Virgin Mary, the pope prayed, “help us, with her maternal intercession, to welcome from her Son Jesus the gift of his commandment, and from the Holy Spirit the strength to practice it in everyday life.”
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Kazakh artist Dosbol Kasymov works on the icon “Mother of the Great Steppe” in advance of Pope Francis’ Sept. 13-15 trip to Kazakhstan. / Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Sep 6, 2022 / 09:03 am (CNA).
A Kazakh artist is creating possibly the first-ever painting of Mary and the Child Jesus as native Kazakhs; it will be displayed in Kazakhstan’s only Marian shrine.
It is hoped that the icon, in the form of a triptych, will be blessed by Pope Francis during his Sept. 13-15 visit to the Central Asian country, where more than 70% of the population is Muslim.
The artist, Dosbol Kasymov, told EWTN News in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Aug. 5 that his inspiration for the image came from his culture’s love and reverence for mothers.
Mother is “a common image,” uniting mankind, Kasymov said. “We are all born, we all came into this world thanks to our mothers.”
Titled “The Mother of the Great Steppe,” the large icon was commissioned by Archbishop Tomasz Peta, the head of Kazakhstan’s Catholic diocese, Maria Santissima in Astana.
The Kazakh Steppe is a treeless, semi-desert grassland covering the northern part of the country, south of the Ural Mountains.
Peta told EWTN News last month that the image of the Kazakh Mary and Jesus is intended for Kazakhstan’s only Marian shrine, Mary Queen of Peace, in the town of Ozernoe, about 68 miles southeast of Nur-Sultan.
The painting depicts the Virgin Mary as a Kazakh woman dressed in traditional clothing. In her arms, she holds her baby son, the Child Jesus, held in the robe of an adult man, a sign of his future death and the Roman tunic he will wear on his way to the cross.
Kazakh artist Dosbol Kasymov spoke to EWTN News about his icon “Mother of the Great Steppe” in advance of Pope Francis’ Sept. 13–15 trip to Kazakhstan. Alexey Gotovsky/CNA.
EWTN News spoke to the artist ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Kazakhstan, while the painting was still a work in progress. Kasymov spoke about some of the traditional Kazakh symbols he incorporated into the icon.
“The Kazakh ornaments, like all the ornaments in the world, have their own symbols. The nimbus, it’s made in the form of a star. On one side is a flower, on the other side is a star, and on the other side is a part of the Kazakh carpet ‘Tuskeiz,’” he explained.
Kasymov said the Child Jesus’ halo is in the form of a shanyrak, the emblem of Kazakhstan and a common cultural symbol based on the shape of a cross.
Ethnic Kazakhs are predominantly Sunni Muslims, the most commonly practiced religion in the country. According to a 2009 national census, the second most practiced religion is Russian Orthodox Christianity, at more than 20%. The country, which has approximately 250,000 Latin-rite Catholics, according to 2008 statistics, is also home to many immigrants.
The nationally-acclaimed painter said he hopes his work will be received by the people of Kazakhstan “with love, with warmth, because, above all, it is the image of the mother.”
“Here is my personal opinion: I think that Kazakhs are very tolerant, they easily accept any culture,” he said.
A detail of the palette of artist Dosbol Kasymov in his studio in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
The finished icon is expected to include a panel on each side depicting an ethnically Kazakh angel playing traditional musical instruments.
After the image is blessed in Nur-Sultan by Pope Francis, who will visit the city for the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, it will be placed in a new prayer chapel at the Mary Queen of Peace Shrine in Ozernoe.
Peta said the new chapel would be built in the shape of a yurt, the traditional round tent used by nomadic groups in Central Asia. The shrine is also getting a new pilgrim welcome center dedicated to St. John Paul II.
The new chapel “is for all people, regardless of faith and nationality; this yurt will be a meeting place with Mary, and through Mary, with Jesus,” Peta said.
Mary Queen of Peace Shrine in Ozernoe, Kazakhstan. Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
Kasymov said he faced a difficult decision when Peta asked him to create an icon of Mary and the Child Jesus, given that he himself is not Christian, nor even particularly religious.
“When the offer came in to write this work, of course I had my doubts,” he said. “But then I talked to my relatives, brothers, friends and they said, ‘Of course you should write it, it’s our common culture.’”
“The Mother of the Great Steppe” in progress in the studio of artist Dosbol Kasymov on Aug. 5, 2022. Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
Kasymov said he is also interested to see how his depiction of Our Lady of the Steppe interacts with the many European images of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“I want to praise our beauty, too, and I want the beauty of our women, the beauty of our mothers to be understandable,” he said.
He explained that Mary is shown looking away because “Kazakhs consider it not quite right or polite for a woman to look directly into the face of her interlocutor.”
“We say in Kazakh, ‘Tygylyp Karama,’ do not stare straight ahead,” he said. “A woman should not look at the spectator directly, she looks a little into the distance. It’s a trait of modesty and part of etiquette.”
The Virgin Mary’s gaze can also be interpreted to mean that she is thinking about the future, that “she senses what is going to happen to her son,” he said.
A detail on the painting of “Mother of the Great Steppe” by Dosbol Kasymov. Alexey Gotovsky/CNA
The Christ Child, who is looking the other way from his mother, “has a mixture of feelings,” the artist noted. “It is as if on the one hand, he does not want to separate from his mother, but on the other hand … somewhere in his depths, in his young subconsciousness, there is also an understanding that he has a path, as each of us has our own path.”
Pope Francis delivers the Angelus address on March 10, 2024. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Mar 10, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Sunday that governments and civil society have a fundamental duty to help ensure that women are able to … […]
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Loving those on the other side is a tough calling. But it is worth trying.
Loving those on the other side is a tough calling. But it is worth trying.