Pope Francis: Pray for a ‘very ill’ Benedict XVI

Vatican City, Mar 24, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis sent a video message to the people of Bangladesh on Wednesday as they mark the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence and the centenary of the birth of the “Father of the Nation,” Sheik… […]

Pope Francis delivers his homily during the Mass for the Solemnity of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 7, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jan 6, 2024 / 09:50 am (CNA).

Drawing on account of the Magi on the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, Pope Francis on Saturday urged the faithful to “find God in flesh and bone, in the faces of those we meet each day, and especially in the poor.” 

“The Magi teach us that an encounter with God opens us up to a greater reality, which makes us change our way of life and transform our world,” the pope said during his homily at a Mass Jan. 6 in St. Peter’s Basilica attended by nearly 6,000 people.

In the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, Epiphany (from the Greek word meaning “manifestation”) celebrates the revelation that Jesus was the Son of God. It focuses primarily on this revelation to the three Magi, or wise men, but it also focuses on the manifestation of Jesus’ divinity at his baptism in the Jordan River and in his first public miracle at the wedding at Cana.

The 87-year-old pontiff emphasized that the wise men’s journey was one of adoration and love, but he noted that “they do not pass their lives staring at their feet, self-absorbed, confined by earthly horizons, plodding ahead in resignation or lamentation.” 

Instead, the pope continued, “they lift their heads high and await the light that can illuminate the meaning of their lives, the salvation that dawns from on high.”

For the Magi “the star shining in the heavens” was a call to both lift “their eyes on high” and “lower them to this world.” In this way, the pope continued, they were able to recognize that God is not an abstract concept, but instead is humbly manifest “in man, in a little child lying in a manger.”

The adoration of the Christ child is a moment that “illuminates our life,” Francis noted.

“The Lord Jesus was given to us not to warm our nights, but to let rays of light break through the dark shadows that envelop so many situations in our societies,” he said.

“We find the God who comes down to visit us, not by basking in some elegant religious theory, but by setting out on a journey, seeking the signs of his presence in everyday life, and above all in encountering and touching the flesh of our brothers and sisters.” 

The Holy Father called on the faithful to remain in God’s presence and stay faithful to the Church.

“We need this on our journey through life, we need to let ourselves walk in friendship with the Lord, we need his love to sustain us, and the light of his word to guide us, like a star in the night,” Pope Francis said.

At the same time, he continued, “we need to set out on this journey so that our faith will not be reduced to an assemblage of religious devotions or mere outward appearance, but will instead become a fire burning within us, making us passionate seekers of the Lord’s face and witnesses to his Gospel.”

Pope Francis added: “We need this in the Church, where, instead of splitting into groups based on our own ideas, we are called to put God back at the center.” 

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A statue of St. Michael the Archangel with a liquid ‘similar to red nail polish’ on its head. / Alicia Martinez

Denver, Colo., Mar 24, 2022 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

After having a chemical analysis performed on swabs used to clean alleged blood from a local woman’s statue of St. Michael the Archangel, the Archdiocese of Denver has determined the red liquid was not blood.

Alicia Martinez, 57, of Broomfield, Colorado, a Denver suburb, said that her St. Michael statue began Feb. 23 to emit a dark liquid which appeared to be blood.

The Denver archdiocese said March 24 that “an initial visual inspection of the statue was conducted by a deacon from a parish in the area.”

Then, on March 12, three officials from the archdiocese’s chancery “visited to perform a more thorough investigation.” 

“Upon arriving at the house and entering the room where the statue was reportedly located, the archdiocesan team was told that someone had taken the St. Michael statue. There were no apparent signs of forced entry to the property.” 

After conducting an interview with Martinez about the alleged bleeding from the statue, she provided the team with several cotton swabs that she said had been used to clean the dark liquid which appeared to resemble blood from the statue. 

The archdiocese said that “A chemical analysis was conducted of the dried liquid on the cotton swabs using the Kastle-Meyer method for presumptive positive blood samples. The test definitively showed that the red liquid obtained from the statue was neither human nor animal blood. The appearance of the substance on the cotton swabs was similar to red nail polish.” 

In an interview conducted in Spanish with CNA earlier in March, Martinez had called the experience “inexplicable.”

After posting a video of the supposedly bleeding statue on Facebook, Martinez, who works at a grocery store, received several comments that she was only seeking money or fame, which led her to remove the video. She expressed multiple times that this was not her intention in sharing the video, but that it was “something real that happened to them [her and her roommates].” 

“What I was seeing was something real. It was something that doesn’t have an explanation,” she expressed. “This is not fraud. This is not to become famous. None of that. I know it’s something divine from God that doesn’t happen to everyone.”

The archdiocese concluded its March 24 statement saying that “As is always the case,” it “urges the faithful to exercise prudence in becoming involved with unapproved apparitions or alleged miracles.”

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