Catholics invited to ‘adopt’ Synod on Synodality members in prayer

Pope Francis smiles during the general audience in the Vatican’s San Damaso Courtyard on June 30, 2021. / Credit: Pablo Esparza/CNA.

Vatican City, Jun 30, 2021 / 05:05 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said on Wednesday that the dramatic conversion of St. Paul should remind us that God has a plan for our lives.

Speaking at the general audience June 30, the pope noted that Paul experienced a “radical transformation” from a persecutor to an Apostle.

“How often, in the face of the Lord’s great works, does the question arise: how is it possible that God uses a sinner, a frail and weak person, to do His will?” the pope asked.

“And yet, none of this happens by chance, because everything has been prepared in God’s plan. He weaves our history, the history of each of us: He weaves our history and, if we correspond with trust to His plan of salvation, we realize it.”

The pope’s livestreamed address, dedicated to “Paul, the true Apostle,” was the second in a new cycle of catechesis on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians.

He observed that Paul began the letter by reminding the Christians in Galatia, present-day Turkey, of his deep love for them.

But Paul also recognized that the community was divided. He responded, the pope said, by underlining the novelty of the Gospel.

“We immediately discover that Paul has a profound knowledge of the mystery of Christ. From the beginning of his Letter he does not follow the low arguments used by his detractors,” the pope said.

“The Apostle ‘flies high’ and shows us, too, how to behave when conflicts arise within the community. Only towards the end of the Letter, in fact, is it made explicit that at the heart of the diatribe is the question of circumcision, hence of the main Jewish tradition.”

The pope praised Paul for identifying the issue that lay beneath the dispute, rather than seeking a quick fix.

“Paul chooses to go deeper, because what is at stake is the truth of the Gospel and the freedom of Christians, which is an integral part of it,” he said.

“He does not stop at the surface of the problems, as we are often tempted to do in order to find an immediate solution that deludes us into thinking that we can all agree with a compromise.”

“This is not how the Gospel works, and the Apostle chose to take the more challenging route.”

Paul reminded the Galatians that he was a true Apostle, the pope said, by telling the story of how he was called by God on the road to Damascus.

“On the one hand, he insists in underlining that he had fiercely persecuted the Church and that he had been a ‘blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence’ (1 Timothy 1: 13); on the other, he highlights God’s mercy towards him, which led him to experience a radical transformation, well known to all,” he observed.

Commenting on Paul’s journey from “a blameless observer of the Mosaic Law” to “a herald among the pagans,” the pope said: “We must never forget the time and the way in which God entered our lives: keep fixed in your heart and mind that encounter with grace, when God changed our existence.”

Concluding his catechesis, the pope said that when we are called by God, we also receive a mission that He wishes us to undertake.

“That is why we are asked to prepare ourselves seriously, knowing that it is God Himself who sends us, God himself who supports us with His grace,” he said.

“Let us allow ourselves to be led by this awareness: the primacy of grace transforms existence and makes it worthy of being placed at the service of the Gospel.”

A precis of the pope’s catechesis was then read out in seven languages. After each summary, he greeted members of each language group.

One of the greetings was to pilgrims from Slovakia, a country that the Vatican is considering for a possible papal visit in September.

He said: “I greet with affection the Slovakian faithful, especially the participants in the Pilgrimage of Thanksgiving of the Eparchy of Košice, which celebrates the 350th anniversary of the miraculous weeping of the icon of Our Lady of Klokočov, led by their ordinary Archbishop Cyril Vasiľ.”

“Brothers and sisters, may this celebration of the Mother of God renew in your people the faith and the lively sense of her intercession on your journey.”

Addressing Italian speakers, the pope thanked his senior driver Renzo Cestiè, who he noted was retiring that day.

“He started working when he was 14, he came by bicycle,” the pope said. “Today he is the pope’s driver: he did all of this. An applause for Renzo and his faithfulness.”

“He is one of those people who carries the Church forward with his work, with his benevolence and with his prayer. I thank him and also take the opportunity to thank the many lay people who work with us in the Vatican,” he said.

The general audience ended with the recitation of the Our Father and the Apostolic Blessing.

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Vatican City, May 29, 2018 / 10:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In September Pope Francis will visit the neighborhood and parish connected with a Sicilian priest killed by the Mafia in 1993, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the death of the “First Martyr of the Mafia.”

After quietly fighting the Mafia through the education of young people, Bl. Giuseppe “Pino” Puglisi was assassinated by hitmen on Sept. 15, 1993, his 53rd birthday.

Pope Francis will fly Sept. 15 to Piazza Armerina where he will greet authorities and the local bishop and meet with the faithful.

Transferring to Palermo by helicopter, he will celebrate Mass in memory of Puglisi and visit the Mission of Hope and Charity to eat lunch with guests of the mission and a group of prisoners and immigrants.

Francis will also make private stops at Bl. Puglisi’s home and parish, San Gaetano, in the Brancaccio neighborhood of Palermo. He will then meet with priests, religious, and seminarians and later with youth, before returning to Rome.

Puglisi was born Sept. 15, 1937 to a modest, working-class family in Palermo. He entered the seminary at the age of 16 and was ordained a priest in 1960 at the age of 22.

Throughout his priesthood, he was known for being outspoken against injustices – including communism, the Mafia, and problems within the Church.

He was also passionately involved in youth ministry and in promoting vocations. In 1990, Puglisi was transferred to the parish of San Gaetano, in a mob-ridden neighborhood. His approach was the same: to win over the youth and be a pastor to his flock.

“Father Puglisi was not a typical anti-Mafia priest. He did not organize rallies or make public condemnation of Mafia,” Archbishop Michele Pennisi of Monreale told the National Catholic Register in 2013. “[The] Mafia does not see that kind of priest as dangerous.”

Puglisi was considered more dangerous “because he educated young people,” Archbishop Pennisi said. He would convince youth not to steal or quit school, and encouraged them away from the Mafia, who would often use children to help them traffic drugs and other illicit materials.

Puglisi preached against the Mafia, ignored their threats, banned them from leading religious processions and even stealthily gave clues to the authorities about their latest activities in his homilies. Consequently, his life was threatened by the mob numerous times, unbeknownst even to those closest to him until after his death.

He would also urge parishioners to give the police leads on the Mafia’s criminal activity, his frequent catchphrase: “And what if somebody did something?”

On September 15, 1993, having received numerous warnings and death threats, Fr. Puglisi was shot in the neck at point-blank range by hitmen under the direction of local Mafia bosses, Filippo and Giuseppe Graviano.

Although he was taken to the hospital, Puglisi was unable to be revived and died of his injuries.

“This is a Mafia crime,” Lorenzo Matassa, an investigating magistrate with broad anti-Mafia experience, told the New York Times in 1993. “Cosa Nostra could not stand that priest’s teaching the kids in the neighborhood about an anti-Mafia culture.”

One of Puglisi’s hitmen, Salvatore Grigoli, later confessed, revealing that the martyr’s final words were “I’ve been expecting you.”

His martyrdom further galvanized the Catholic Church in Sicily to act and speak out against the mob and five years after his death four Mafia members received life sentences for their involvement in the murder.
   
Declared a martyr by Benedict XVI in 2012 and beatified in 2013, he is buried in the cemetery of Sant’Orsola in Palermo.

Pope Francis spoke about Puglisi the day after his beatification during his Angelus address, calling him a “martyr” and an “exemplary priest.”

By teaching boys about the Gospel of Christ, Puglisi saved them from the “criminal underworld,” which retaliated by killing him, Francis said. Though in fact, it was Puglisi “who won, with the Risen Christ.”

Francis criticized the Mafia for its exploitation of men, women, and children through prostitution, social pressure, and forced jobs. “Let us pray to the Lord to convert the heart of these people,” he said. “They cannot do this! They cannot make slaves of us, brothers and sisters!”

“We must pray that these members of the Mafia be converted to God and let us praise God for the luminous witness borne by Fr. Giuseppe Puglisi.”

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