Upcoming Events View All
2
Speaker: Social Media and Teen Mental Health

Tuesday, 04/02/2024 at 6:30 PM

5
6
From the Heart Rummage Sale

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

6
St. Mark Book Fair

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

7
Poet Laureates Alive: Smith, Harjo, and Limon with Noeli Lytton

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

7
Divine Mercy Sunday

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 2:00 PM

9
Eco-Series Film for April: River Blue

Tuesday, 04/09/2024 at 6:30 PM

10
Where Art Serves the World

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

10
Made for More Speaker Series

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

12
Quarter Auction

Friday, 04/12/2024 at 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Pope Francis used incense to bless the casket of French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran during his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican July 12. Cardinal Tauran, who announced the election of Pope Francis, died July 5 at the age of 75 in Hartford, Conn.
Pope Francis used incense to bless the casket of French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran during his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican July 12. Cardinal Tauran, who announced the election of Pope Francis, died July 5 at the age of 75 in Hartford, Conn.
Photo Credit: Paul Haring | Catholic News Service

POPE’S MESSAGE | All Christians are sent out by Christ as messengers of the kingdom

Pope Francis said, ‘A baptized person who does not feel the need to proclaim the Gospel … is not a good Christian’

VATICAN CITY — All Christians are called to be missionaries, concerned more with sharing the Gospel than with earning money or even with being successful at winning converts, Pope Francis said.

“A baptized person who does not feel the need to proclaim the Gospel, to announce Christ, is not a good Christian,” the pope said July 15 before reciting the Angelus prayer with an estimated 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis was commenting on the day’s Gospel reading, which told about how Jesus sent the disciples out two-by-two to preach and to heal in His name.

“It was a kind of apprenticeship for what they would be called to do with the power of the Holy Spirit after the resurrection of the Lord,” the pope explained.

Speaking only in the name of Jesus, he said, “the apostles had nothing of their own to proclaim and of their own abilities to demonstrate, but they spoke and acted as emissaries, as messengers of Jesus.”

“This Gospel episode concerns us, too, and not only priests, but all the baptized, who are called to witness to the Gospel of Christ in all the situations of life,” the pope said.

Christians fulfill their mission, he said, when their proclamation is motivated only by love for and obedience to Christ and when the only message they share is Christ’s.

In the reading from St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples “to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick — no food, no sack, no money in their belts.”

The poverty and simplicity of lifestyle Jesus asks for, the pope said, were meant to make the disciples of yesterday and today “free and light.”

Jesus, he said, calls His disciples to set out as “messengers of the kingdom of God, not powerful managers, not unmovable functionaries (and) not stars on tour.”

Although all the baptized are sent out on mission by Christ, they go with no guarantee of success, the pope said. “This, too, is poverty: the experience of failure.”

Pope Francis prayed that Mary, “the first disciple and missionary of the word of God, would help us bear the message of the Gospel in the world with a humble and radiant exultation that goes beyond every refusal, misunderstanding or tribulation.”

Learn from the past before looking to future, pope tells young people

VATICAN CITY — The future cannot be understood without reflecting on the past and on the history and traditions passed on to young people from parents and grandparents, Pope Francis said.

“It’s from your roots that you will get the strength to continue. None of us — neither you nor me — were manufactured in a laboratory; we have a history, we have roots. And everything we do, the results we achieve, the beauty we create in the future, all comes from those roots,” the pope said in a video message released by the Vatican July 15.

The pope’s message was sent to young people of the Caribbean attending the July 10-23 youth assembly sponsored by the Antilles bishops’ conference. The conference’s theme was focused on transforming the family in the Caribbean in accordance with “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), the pope’s apostolic exhortation on marriage and family.

In his message, the pope warned young people of the danger of becoming “aging youths” who are “settled” and do not have the strength to move forward and build a better future.

Explaining that his exhortation’s fourth chapter is “the heart” of the document’s teaching on the family, the pope urged them to study and examine it as a way “of moving the family forward and to transform the family of the Caribbean.”

“Study it. Look at it and you will have the guidelines to move forward,” the pope said.

Love is never-ending and is an important aspect of family life with “a strength all its own,” Pope Francis said.

“St. Paul says: ‘Faith and hope will end when we are united with the Lord, but love will continue with Him,’” the pope told the young people. “You are transforming something that is for all eternity; that strength (of love) that will remain forever.”

— Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service

Related Articles Module

Recent Articles Module

Other Recent Pope's Message Articles View All

POPE’S MESSAGE | Saints exemplify virtue

POPE’S MESSAGE | Envy, if unchecked, leads to hatred of others

From the Archive Module

POPES MESSAGE All Christians are sent out by Christ as messengers of the kingdom 2703

Must Watch Videos

Now Playing

    View More Videos