Papal preacher urges ‘littleness’ ahead of Christmas

Pope Francis greets pilgrims at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 22, 2023 / 05:20 am (CNA).

To effectively witness to the Gospel, Christians need to be consistent in what they believe, how they live, and what they preach, Pope Francis said Wednesday.

“The witness of an authentically Christian life involves a journey to holiness,” Pope Francis said on March 22.

Speaking at his weekly audience in St. Peter’s Square, the pope underlined that Christian witness must include “professed faith” of what the Church teaches that transforms both one’s relationships and “the values that determine our choices.”

“Witness, therefore, cannot be separated from consistency between what one believes, what one proclaims, and how one lives,” he said.

“A person is credible if there is harmony between what he believes and how he lives. Many Christians only say they believe, but live something else … and this is hypocrisy.”

The pope asked the crowd to reflect on three questions first posed by Paul VI in his apostolic exhortation on evangelization in the modern world, Evangelii nuntiandi: “Do you believe what you are proclaiming? Do you live what you believe? Do you preach what you live?”

Pope Francis emphasized that holiness is “not reserved for a few” but is “a gift from God that demands to be received and made to bear fruit for ourselves and for others.”

“Paul VI teaches that the zeal for evangelization springs from holiness, springs from a heart that is full of God,” he said.

“Nourished by prayer and above all by love for the Eucharist, evangelization, in turn, increases holiness in those who carry it out.”

Because of the importance of bearing witness to the Gospel, Pope Francis said that it is necessary for the Church to constantly be “evangelizing herself.”

“Indeed, ‘she needs to listen unceasingly to what she must believe, to her reasons for hoping, to the new commandment of love. She is the People of God immersed in the world, and often tempted by idols … and she always needs to hear the proclamation of the mighty works of God … this means that she has a constant need of being evangelized if she wishes to retain freshness, vigor, and strength in order to proclaim the Gospel,’” he said, quoting Evangelii nuntiandi.

“A Church that evangelizes herself in order to evangelize is a Church that, guided by the Holy Spirit, is required to walk a demanding path of continuous conversion and renewal,” he added.

Pope Francis arrived at the general audience in the popemobile to a Florentine flag corps performance by a colorfully-clothed group that preserves the music and traditions from Tuscany’s medieval and Renaissance history.

At the end of the audience, the pope blessed a large bell engraved with the words, “Voice of the Unborn,” which will be installed in Lusaka, Zambia.

The giant bell was forged in the workshop of Jan Felczyński in Przemyśl, Poland as part of an initiative by the Polish Yes to Life foundation. Pope Francis has previously blessed “Voice of the Unborn” bells for Poland, Ecuador, and Ukraine.

Francis called the bell a “sign of the need to protect human life from conception to natural death.”

“Let its sound carry the message that every life is sacred and inviolable. I bless you from my heart,” he said.

Pope Francis also recalled the upcoming anniversary of his consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Virgin Mary on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

“Let us not tire of entrusting the cause of peace to the Queen of Peace,” the pope said.

“Therefore, I would like to invite each believer and community, especially prayer groups, to renew every March 25 the act of consecration to Our Lady, so that she, who is Mother, may guard us all in unity and peace.”

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The College of Cardinals celebrates Mass on March 12, 2013, before entering the Sistine Chapel for the papal conclave. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 13, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
The most recent change in the College of Cardinals t… […]

Pope Francis meets with the Order of Malta’s Fra’ Marco Luzzago on June 25, 2021. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 28, 2022 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Pope Francis reportedly told leaders of the Order of Malta on Saturday that there is “no urgency” to make a final decision on long-awaited reforms.

Marwan Sehnaoui, the chairman of the steering committee for the constitutional reform process, said in a letter that the Feb. 26 meeting at the Vatican was focused on the sovereign order’s ongoing reform.

According to Sehnaoui, Pope Francis opened and closed the two-hour discussion by underlining that ultimately he himself would decide on the “critical issues regarding the order’s constitutional reform.”

“Pope Francis listened carefully to the presentations and interventions of both sides. After the exchange of views, the Holy Father said that there is no urgency in making a final decision. His Holiness also said that he wishes to gather and review more information and that he would probably convene another audience,” Sehnaoui said in his letter.

The papal meeting included the Lieutenant of the Grand Master Fra’ Marco Luzzago, as well as the papal delegate Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, who is overseeing the drafting of the new constitution.

In a statement following the Feb. 26 meeting, Tomasi said that the participants in the meeting had presented to Pope Francis how the proposed reform “maintains and better frames the order in its characteristic of a religious lay order and allows for the continuation of its charitable, diplomatic, and humanitarian action.”

Tomasi said that Pope Francis had granted the Order of Malta another audience, after which the pope will decide on the projects they have presented to him.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as it is officially known, is both a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and a subject of international law. In 2017, Pope Francis ordered reforms of both the order’s religious life and its constitution.

The reform entered a decisive stage in January, when a leaked draft of the order’s new constitution appeared to reveal that the order would be made a subject of the Holy See — a provision that critics said could jeopardize the order’s sovereignty and its bilateral relations with 112 states, as well as its permanent observer status at the United Nations.

But after talks with a Vatican delegate, the order’s Grand Chancellor Albrecht von Boeselager said he had been assured that the order’s sovereignty and right of self-governance were not in danger.

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