Pope Francis: A baby’s smile is a sign of God’s love

Pope Francis greets the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Angelus address on Sept. 24, 2023. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 24, 2023 / 07:30 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Sunday that regardless of one’s stage of life, it is never too late to receive God’s love.

Speaking in his Angelus address on Sept. 24, the pope said that God is seeking us out at every hour of the day and that his “big-hearted” love for us is not based on our merits.

“This is how God is: He does not wait for our efforts to come to us,” Francis said. “He does not give up if we are late in responding to Him. On the contrary, He Himself has taken the initiative and through Jesus came to us to show us His love.”

“And He seeks us at all hours of the day, which, as Saint Gregory the Great states, represent the different stages and seasons of our life up to old age (cf. Homilies on the Gospel, 19).”

“For His heart, it is never too late; He is always looking for us and waiting for us.”

The pope spoke from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square one day after he gave a strong condemnation of euthanasia on his return flight from Marseille in southern France, saying there is such a thing as “bad compassion.”

Pope Francis spent two days in the French city, where he spoke at a meeting of young people and bishops called Mediterranean Encounter with a message that the deepening migrant crisis unfolding in the Mediterranean is “a reality of our times” that calls for wisdom and a collaborative response from European nations.

“Dear brothers and sisters, today we celebrate World Migrant and Refugee Day, under the theme ‘free to choose whether to migrate or to stay,” as a reminder that migrating should be a free choice and never the only one possible,” he said on Sunday.

Reflecting on his trip to France, Pope Francis said that the challenge of creating communities that can welcome and integrate migrants was “at the heart” of the Mediterranean Encounter event.

“It is necessary that every man and every woman be guaranteed the opportunity to live a dignified life, in the society in which they find themselves. Unfortunately, misery, wars, and climate crisis force so many people to flee,” he said.

“Therefore, we are all called to create communities ready and open to welcome, promote, accompany, and integrate those who knock on our doors.”

Pope Francis also offered thanks to the Italian bishops’ conference for their efforts to assist migrants in Italy.

In his Angelus message, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ parable in the Gospel of Matthew about a landowner who gives all of his laborers the full daily wage, even those who were employed late in the day and worked only one hour.

The pope noted that the “ultimate meaning of the parable” is that of “God’s superior justice.”

“Human justice says to ‘give to each his own according to what he deserves,’ while God’s justice does not measure love on the scales of our returns, our performance, or our failures: God just loves us, He loves us because we are his children, and He does so with an unconditional and gratuitous love,” Pope Francis said.

“Brothers and sisters, sometimes we risk having a ‘mercantile’ relationship with God, focusing more on our own skill than on the generosity of his grace,” he said. “Sometimes even in the Church, instead of going out at all hours of the day and extending our arms to all, we can feel like the first in our class, judging others far away, without thinking that God loves them too with the same love He has for us.”

After praying the Angelus prayer in Latin with the crowd, Pope Francis extended an invitation to all to attend an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday, Sept. 30 to pray for the upcoming Synod on Synodality assembly.

“May Our Lady help us to convert to God’s measure: that of a love without measure,” he said.

[…]

When Pope Pius IX declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on Dec. 8, 1854, he had a golden crown added to the mosaic of Mary, Virgin Immaculate, in the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter’s Basilica. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

ACI Prensa Staff, Feb 7, 2024 / 10:30 am (CNA).

On Feb. 7, the Catholic Church remembers Blessed Pius IX, “Pius Nono,” the 255th pope. His pontificate is the second longest in history — a total of 31 years, seven months, and 22 days (June 16, 1846–Feb. 7, 1878). He was beatified together with Pope John XXIII (now canonized) on Sept. 3, 2000, by Pope John Paul II.

The future Pope Pius IX was born Giovanni Maria Battista Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai Ferretti in Senigallia, Italy — then part of the Papal States — on May 13, 1792. His parents were Don Gerolamo Mastai Ferretti, a member of a local noble and prestigious family, and Donna Caterina Solazzi, who had him baptized on the same day of his birth. 

In 1809 he traveled to Rome to continue the studies he had begun in his native city. Even without a clear orientation toward the priesthood, he lived in an exemplary way, evidenced by some resolutions made in 1810 after a spiritual retreat when he spoke of his spiritual commitment “to fight against sin, to avoid any dangerous occasion, to study not for the ambition of knowledge but for the good of others, to abandon himself into the hands of God.” 

The future pope stopped his studies in 1812 because of an illness and was exempted from military service. In 1815 he was accepted into the Pontifical Noble Guard but had to abandon the idea because of health problems. Ferretti suffered from epilepsy from a young age — a condition that eventually subsided and then completely disappeared, according to Ferretti himself, which he credited to the intercession of Our Lady of Loreto.

At the service of God and the Church

Ferretti began studies for the priesthood in 1816 and received minor orders in 1817, the subdiaconate in 1818, and the diaconate in 1819. That same year he was ordained a priest. He celebrated his first Mass in the Church of St. Anne of the Carpenters, of the Tata Giovanni Institute, of which he was appointed rector — a position he held until 1823. 

Pius VII, who supported Ferretti’s early career, at first required him to have a concelebrant because of his epilepsy, but the requirement was lifted as his health improved. 

Ferretti had already left clear evidence of his personality: a man of constant prayer, consecrated to the ministry of the Word and the sacrament of reconciliation, always close to the most humble and needy. He knew how to combine admirably both the active and contemplative life. Very dedicated to pastoral and social work, he was also recollected and had an intense devotion to the Eucharist and to the Virgin Mary. 

In 1823 he left the Tata Giovanni Institute and traveled to Chile, accompanying the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Giovanni Muzi. He remained there until 1825.

On his return to Italy that same year, he was appointed director of the St. Michael Home, an important ecclesial work in Rome at the service of the community, which he reformed in an effective manner. At the age of 35 he was appointed archbishop of Spoleto. This was a very hard stage of his life given his youth and inexperience, and the immense responsibility that was placed on his shoulders. During his brief time, he also contended with an abortive political revolution, using his influence to secure a pardon for the misguided revolutionaries.

In 1832, Ferretti was transferred to another diocese — this time to Imola, where he continued to be revered for his preaching, his care of his diocesan priests, clergy, and seminarians, his support of education in the diocese, and his pastoral visits to prisoners. In 1840, at the age of 48, he was named a cardinal.

Under the sign of the cross

On the afternoon of June 16, 1846, Cardinal Ferretti was elected pope and took the name Pius IX.

During his pontificate, due to the political circumstances caused by the unification of Italy — the Risorgimento — and the loss of the Papal States, his task became extremely difficult. He is said to have faced the hard times with great wisdom and prudence. For this very reason, Pope Pius IX is recognized as one of the greatest pontiffs, forced to play a political role in times of open anticlericalism encouraged by “modernist” currents. 

Pius IX’s doctrinal work involved a programmatic vision aimed at addressing the main problems and threats to both the Church and Western Christian civilization: He condemned secret societies such as Freemasonry as well as fashionable ideologies like liberalism and socialism, among others. Pius IX published the “Syllabus Errorum” (“Catalogue of Errors”), in which he warned about the errors and dangers of modernism.

This made him the initiator of the development of the social doctrine of the Church. His century was marked by the Industrial Revolution and the struggle of the working class for better conditions — issues the Church would begin to address, most notably under his successor, Pope Leo XIII.

Among the most outstanding pastoral actions or measures of Pius IX’s papacy are the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England, Holland, and Scotland; the solemn definition, on Dec. 8, 1854, of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; the sending of missionaries to the Nordic zones of America and Europe as well as to India, Burma, China, and Japan; and the celebration of the 80th centenary of the martyrdom of the apostles Peter and Paul.

Pius IX convened the First Vatican Ecumenical Council, which began in 1869 and was suspended in October 1870 after Rome fell to the forces of Italian unification. During this council, the dogma of papal infallibility was defined. That same year Pope Pius IX declared St. Joseph patron of the Church.

Back home

After the fall of Rome and the subsequent end of the “temporal power of the pope,” Pius IX locked himself in the Vatican, declaring himself a “prisoner.” His action became an example of dignity and detachment from the temporal order for his exercise of religious freedom and firmness in the face of secular power.    

Upon his death on Feb. 7, 1878, Pope Pius IX’s impressive pontificate came to an end.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

[…]

Vatican City, Mar 19, 2018 / 01:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis marked Monday’s Solemnity of St. Joseph by ordaining three new bishops, telling them prayer is a primary ecclesial duty, and if they do not maintain a strong spiritual life, they are not fulfilling their vocation.

“Announce the Word in every occasion: opportune and inopportune. Admonish, rebuke, exhort with all magnanimity and doctrine. And through the prayer and sacrificial offering of your people, draw from the fullness of the holiness of Christ the manifold richness of divine grace,” the Pope said March 19.

Prayer, he said, “is the first task of a bishop. A bishop who doesn’t pray does not fulfill his duty, he does not fulfill his vocation.”

Francis celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the March 19 feast of St. Joseph, which also marks the fifth anniversary of the inauguration of his papacy.

During the ceremony, he ordained as archbishops three recently appointed nuncios, including Archbishop Waldermar Sommertag, apostolic nuncio to Nicaragua; Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, papal envoy to Korea and Mongolia; and Archbishop Josè Avelino Bettencourt, the Pope’s new ambassador to Georgia and Armenia.

The pope’s brief homily for the day was taken from the section for the ordination of bishops of the Roman Pontifical.

In the homily, he said that while the three men were ordained bishops, “it is Christ who in the ministry of the bishop continues to preach the Gospel of salvation and sanctify believers through the sacraments of faith.”

“It is Christ who in the paternity of the bishop increases his body, which is the Church. It is Christ who in the wisdom and prudence of the bishop guides the people of God in the earthly pilgrimage until eternal happiness,” he said.

Francis reminded the bishops in off-the-cuff comments that they were “chosen among men and for men. You are not called for business, worldliness, or politics: the episcopate is the name of a service, not an honor, as the bishop is more competent for serving than for dominating.”

He told them to love their flock with the love of both a father and a brother, especially priests and deacons.

“Closeness to the priests, please!” he said, and encouraged them to also be close to the poor and defenseless.

“Keep vigil with love on the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit places you to govern the Church of God,” he said, and told them to do this “in the name of the Father, whose image you make present; in the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, by whom you are made masters, priests and pastors. In the name of the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the Church and with its power sustains our weakness.”

[…]