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

Photo Credit: Paul Haring | Catholic News Service

POPE’S MESSAGE | Mary teaches people to hope in life’s darkest moments

VATICAN CITY — Mary, like many mothers throughout the world, is an example of strength and courage in accepting new life and in sharing the suffering of their children, Pope Francis said.

Although she had no idea of what awaited her when she accepted to bear God's son, "Mary in that instant appears to us like one of the many mothers in our world, courageous to the extreme," the pope said May 10 at his weekly general audience.

Her motherly love and courage is seen again at the foot of the cross, he said, where "she teaches us the virtue of waiting even when everything appears meaningless."

Just a few days before he was to visit Fatima, Portugal, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there and as people in many countries were preparing to celebrate Mother's Day, Pope Francis used his audience talk to focus on Mary and hope.

"We are not orphans, we have a mother in heaven," he said. "In difficult moments, may Mary, the mother that Jesus has given to us all, always guide our steps."

The Gospels portray Mary mostly as a "woman of silence," but one who "meditated on every word and every event in her heart," the pope said. "She is not a woman who is depressed in front of the uncertainties of life, especially when nothing seems to be going right. Instead, she is a woman who listens."

Continuing his series of talks on Christian hope, Pope Francis reflected on Mary as "the mother of hope."

"Don't forget: There is always a great relationship between hope and listening. And Mary is a woman who listens, who welcomes existence as it comes to us with its happy days as well as its tragedies, which we never want to encounter," he said.

Mary's silence in the Gospel, the pope continued, is particularly evident in Jesus' final moments where her presence during Christ's passion is "eclipsed" until "she reappears at a crucial moment: when a good number of friends vanished because of fear."

"Mothers do not betray, and in that instance, at the foot of the cross, none of us can say which one was the crueler passion: that of the innocent man who dies on the scaffold of the cross or the agony of a mother who accompanies her son in His final moments of life," he said.

Mary, he added, was "there" not just out of faithfulness to God's divine plan but also because "of her instinct as a mother who just suffers" every time her child does. 

Pope: Learn to know Jesus' voice by reading the Bible

VATICAN CITY — To know and follow Jesus, a Christian must read the Bible and learn to pray with it, allowing the Holy Spirit to help one understand it and put it into practice, Pope Francis said.

"My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me," Jesus states in the Gospel of John. Christians today learn to know and hear Jesus' voice by reading the Bible, the pope said May 9 at his early morning Mass.

Christians always should have a Bible with them, the pope said in his homily. "Read it. Open our hearts to the word, open our hearts to the Spirit who helps us understand the word."

The results, he said, will be "goodness, benevolence, joy, peace, self-control and meekness."

As the weekday Mass readings continued with selections from the Acts of the Apostles, Pope Francis again referred to the biblical accounts of tensions in the early Christian community between those who thought they should be preaching only to fellow Jews and those who were moved to open the community to believers from among the Greeks and pagans.

Accepting God's word and the promptings of the Holy Spirit with "docility," the pope said, means being "not rigid," but having an "open heart."

— Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service 

RELATED ARTICLE(S):POPE'S MESSAGE | Americas, open your arms to poor, immigrants, unborn

Recent Articles Module

Other Recent Pope's Message Articles View All

From the Archive Module

POPES MESSAGE Mary teaches people to hope in lifes darkest moments 1773

Must Watch Videos

Now Playing

    View More Videos