This is Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of October

Vatican City, Jul 16, 2018 / 11:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a message to Antillean youth, Pope Francis said love is the core of the Church’s doctrine on the family, which is something every young person is responsible for carrying forward.

To understand what this love means, the pope urged young people to both read and study chapter four of his 2016 post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia, which is dedicated to “Love in Marriage.”

“I tell you that the core of Amoris Laetitia was chapter four. How to live love. How to live love in the family,” he said, and told youth to read and talk about the chapter with each other, because “there is a lot of strength here to continue going forward” and to transform family life.

Love “has its own strength. And love never ends,” he said, explaining that if they learn how to truly love as God taught, “you will be transforming something that is for all of eternity.”

Pope Francis sent a video message to participants in the youth assembly of the Antilles Bishops Conference, which is taking place in the Archdiocese of Saint-Pierre and Fort-de-France, in Martinique, from July 10-23.

In his message, the pope asked youth whether they were really living as young people, or if they had become “aged youth,” because “if you are aged young people you are not going to do anything. You have to be youth who are young, with all the strength that youth has to transform.”

He said young people should not be “settled” in life, because being “settled” means one is at a standstill and “things don’t go forward.”

“You have to un-stall what has been stalled and start to fight,” the pope said. “You want to transform, you want to carry forward and you have made your own the directives of the post-synodal exhortation on the family in order to carry the family forward and transform the family of the Caribbean,” he said.

In order to promote and carry the family forward, one must understand both the present and the past, Pope Francis said.

“You are preparing to transform something that has been given to you by your elders. You have received the history of yesterday, the traditions of yesterday,” he said, adding that people “cannot do anything in the present nor the future if you are not rooted in the past, in your history, in your culture, in your family; if you do not have roots that are well grounded.”

To this end, he told youth to spend time with their grandparents and other elderly people, and to take what they lean and “carry it forward.”

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Vatican City, Apr 18, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis prayed for those caring for people with disabilities during the coronavirus crisis at his morning Mass Saturday. 

Speaking from the chapel of his Vatican residence, Casa Santa Marta, April 18, he said he had received a letter from a religious sister working as a sign language interpreter for deaf people. She told him about the difficulties facing healthcare workers, nurses and doctors looking after disabled patients affected by COVID-19. 

“So let us pray for those who are always at the service of these persons with various disabilities,” he said.

The pope made the comments at the start of the Mass, which was livestreamed due to the pandemic. 

In his homily, he reflected on the day’s first reading (Acts 4:13-21), in which the religious authorities ordered Peter and John not to teach in the name of Jesus. 

The apostles refused to obey, the pope said, replying with “courage and frankness” that it was impossible for them to remain silent about what they had seen and heard. 

Ever since then, he explained, courage and frankness have been the hallmarks of Christian preaching. 

The pope recalled a passage in the Letter to the Hebrews (10:32-35), in which lukewarm Christians are urged to remember their early struggles and regain their confidence and candor.

“You cannot be Christian without this frankness: if it does not come, you are not a good Christian,” he said. “If you don’t have the courage, if to explain your position you slide into ideologies or casuistic explanations, you lack that frankness, you lack that Christian style, the freedom to speak, to say everything.”

Peter and John’s frankness confounded the leaders, elders and scribes, he said.

“Really, they were cornered by frankness: they didn’t know how to get out of it,” he observed. “But it didn’t occur to them to say, ‘Could this be true?’ The heart was already closed, it was hard; the heart was corrupt.”

The pope noted that Peter was not born brave, but had received the gift of parrhesia — a Greek word sometimes translated as “boldness” — from the Holy Spirit. 

“He was a coward, he denied Jesus,” he said. “But what happened now? They [Peter and John] answered: ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.’” 

“But where does this courage come from, this coward who has denied the Lord? What has happened in this man’s heart? The gift of the Holy Spirit: frankness, courage, parrhesia is a gift, a grace that the Holy Spirit gives on the day of Pentecost.” 

“Just after receiving the Holy Spirit they went to preach: a little brave, something new for them. This is consistency, the sign of the Christian, of the true Christian: he is courageous, he says the whole truth because he is consistent.”

Turning to the day’s Gospel reading (Mark 16:9-15), in which the risen Christ reproaches the disciples for not believing reports of his resurrection, the pope noted that Jesus gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit which enables them to carry out their mission to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

“The mission comes precisely from here, from this gift which makes us courageous, frank in proclaiming the word,” he said.

After Mass, the pope presided at adoration and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, before leading those watching online in a prayer of spiritual communion.

The Pope recalled that tomorrow he would offer Mass at Santo Spirito in Sassia, a church near St. Peter’s Basilica, at 11 a.m local time. 

Finally, those present sang the Easter Marian antiphon “Regina caeli.”

In his homily, the pope clarified that Christians should be both courageous and prudent. 

“May the Lord always help us to be like this: courageous. This does not mean imprudent: no, no. Courageous. Christian courage is always prudent, but it is courage,” he said.

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The American actor and director Sylvester Stallone met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Sept. 8, 2023. / Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Sep 8, 2023 / 09:15 am (CNA).
Pope Francis received U.S. actor and director Sylvester “Sly” Stallone at the… […]