By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Our Lady of Guadalupe is a message of “mestizaje,” or a fusion of cultures that leads to an encounter between humanity and God, Pope Francis said.

In a message to Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves of Toledo, Spain, Pope Francis reflected on the figure of Guadalupe to mark the occasion of the shrines of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and in Spain becoming “sister shrines.”

“Mary, our mother, is always a bond of communion for her people,” and her invitation to prayer and communion “has been expressed in many places in the world with the invitation to build a temple that would be a house with doors always open to all,” the pope said in his message, which was published Feb. 13.

Two of the most famous temples in Hispanic culture built at Mary’s request are the Guadalupe shrines in Spain and Mexico which are considered “sister shrines” following a ceremony in Guadalupe, Spain, Feb. 13 in which Archbishop Cerro and Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, archbishop of Mexico City, Mexico, both participated.

The royal monastery of St. Mary of Guadalupe in Spain was constructed in the 14th century on the site where tradition holds that Mary appeared to a farmer who discovered a dark-skinned statue of Mary. Many Spanish conquistadors who traveled to the New World came from the area around Guadalupe and had a strong devotion to the Marian figure.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City houses St. Juan Diego’s tilma, the mantle that bears the miraculous image of Mary who appeared to the Indigenous saint and spoke to him in Nahuatl, an Aztec language. An estimated 12 million people visited the basilica each year before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, making it Catholicism’s most popular Marian shrine.

In his message to Archbishop Cerro, Pope Francis said the origin of the word “Guadalupe” is not entirely known, and its roots have been traced to Arabic, Latin or Nahuatl. He noted that while this could be interpreted as a conflict, it can also “be read as a sign from the Holy Spirit who makes his message of love heard in every language.”

The pope then traced how the different linguistic interpretations of “Guadalupe” combine to produce new meanings: in Arabic it means “hidden river,” which refers to grace; its Latin origins could mean “river of wolves,” referring to a “haven of peace for those troubled by their own sins” and violence; and the Nahuatl roots would mean “the one who conquers the serpent.”

The Gospel, while remaining the same, is “enriched in meaning” in every historical moment and by every culture it encounters, the pope said.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Marriage is not a ceremony, a social event, a mere formality or an abstract ideal, Pope Francis said.

Marriage, according to Christian revelation, is a gift from God that joins a man and woman together so that “the two shall become one flesh,” and “what God has joined together, no human being must separate,” the pope said, quoting the Gospel of Matthew.

Marriage is also “an extraordinary good, a good of extraordinary value for everyone: for the spouses themselves, for their children, for all families with whom they form relationships, for the entire church, for all of humanity,” the pope told members of the Roman Rota, a Vatican-based tribunal that deals mainly with marriage cases and requests for marriage annulments.

“Every true marriage, even a non-sacramental one, is a gift of God to the spouses,” the pope told the tribunal members Jan. 27. “Matrimony is always a gift! Conjugal fidelity rests on divine fidelity; conjugal fruitfulness is based on divine fruitfulness. Man and woman are called to accept this gift and freely correspond to it with the reciprocal gift of self.”

As the members inaugurated the tribunal’s judicial year, Pope Francis said he wanted to focus his talk on marriage “because there is a great need in the church and in the world to rediscover the meaning and value of the conjugal union between a man and a woman on which the family is based.”

St. John Paul II described the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony as offering a “new heart” so that “the couples are not only able to overcome ‘hardness of heart,’ but also and above all they are able to share the full and definitive love of Christ, the new and eternal covenant made flesh,” the pope said, quoting from the 1981 document, “Familiaris Consortio.”

“Marriage according to Christian revelation is not a ceremony or a social event, no,” Pope Francis said. “It is neither a formality nor an abstract ideal: it is a reality with its own precise consistency, not a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will.”

At the same time, the pope said, “marriage should not be idealized, as if it existed only where there are no problems.”

God’s plan “is always fulfilled imperfectly” in human hands, he said, and yet the Lord is present in the family “with all their daily troubles and struggles, joys and hopes.”

Life as a family makes it “difficult to pretend and lie; we cannot hide behind a mask,” he said. “If that authenticity is inspired by love, then the Lord reigns there, with his joy and his peace.”

For married couples in crisis, “the church, both pastors and other faithful, accompanies them with love and hope, seeking to support them,” he said. “A fundamental resource for facing and overcoming crises is to renew awareness of the gift received in the sacrament of marriage, an irrevocable gift, a source of grace on which we can always count.”

Pope Francis said there is a need “to rediscover the permanent reality of marriage as a bond,” especially since the “bond” is often thought of as an “imposition, a burden, a ‘tether’ in opposition to the authenticity and freedom of love.”

“If, on the other hand, the bond is understood precisely as a bond of love, then it reveals itself as the core of marriage, as a divine gift that is the source of true freedom and that safeguards married life,” he said.

The church can assist engaged and married couples to deepen their love and overcome difficulties not just by helping them accept its doctrinal teachings and its valuable spiritual resources, he said. The church can also help by offering “practical programs, sound advice, strategies based on experience and psychological guidance.”

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – No physical limitation or setback can diminish the value of any human being because each person is a unique and beloved child of God, Pope Francis said.

“We are not anonymous, we are not photocopies, we are all originals! And this is how we should be: originals, not photocopies,” he said during an audience at the Vatican Jan. 14 with members of the Pope John XXIII Community association.

“God knows us one by one, with our name and our face, which is unique,” he said.

“Certainly, we also have our limitations; some of us unfortunately have heavy limitations to bear,” the pope said. “But this detracts nothing from the value of a person: each one is unique, a son or daughter of God, each one is a brother or sister of Jesus.”

“A Christian community that welcomes the person as he or she is thus helps to see them as God does,” which is with a look of love, he said.

“God also sees our limitations, it is true, and helps us to bear them,” the pope said. “But God looks above all at the heart and sees every person in his or her entirety. God sees us as an image of Jesus, his only begotten son, and with his love he helps us to become more and more like him.”

The pope thanked the many families at the audience who offer foster care, emphasizing the importance of welcoming children and others into a loving home so they may be “regenerated by Christian love.”

These are men and women “who open the doors of their home to give a family to those who do not have one. A real family; not a job, but a life choice. In it there is room for everyone: minors, people with disabilities, the elderly, Italians or foreigners, and anyone who is looking for a fixed point from which to start again or a family in which to find themselves,” he said.

Pope Francis also thanked those who were unable to be at the day’s audience and had sent him their stories and questions.

“I would like to address some of you personally,” he said, such as Sara, 13, who fled Iraq and carries in her heart “the holy desire that children not be robbed of their childhood: May God help you achieve this!”

The people offered guidance to others without naming them, urging one child who “would like to see your grandmother who has gone to heaven,” to “speak with her in your heart and follow her good example, and one day you will see her again.”

Another young person, the pope said, “like many teenagers,” wrote about the “struggle to perceive the beauty of Mass.” But the pope responded, “Do not fear; at the right moment, the living Jesus will let you feel his presence.”

Pope Francis also thanked a “little friend, who remembers the innocents who are killed in the womb.”
Noting that many members of the community meet online to pray the rosary for peace every Sunday, the pope told them, “God listens to your prayer for peace, even if he does not seem to. God listens to it, and we believe that God gives us peace, immediately, today!”

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The theological writings and papal teaching of the late Pope Benedict XVI were and will continue to be a blessing to the Catholic Church, Pope Francis wrote.

“Benedict XVI’s thought and magisterium are and always will remain fruitful because he knew how to focus on the fundamental references of our Christian life: first of all, the person and the word of Jesus Christ, as well as the theological virtues, namely charity, hope and faith,” the pope wrote in the introduction to a new book.

The Vatican publishing house described the book “Dio è Sempre Nuovo,” (“God is Ever-New”), as a collection of the “spiritual thoughts” of the late pope, “an anthology of the principal themes of the Christian faith in the words of Pope Benedict XVI.”

The book was edited by Luca Caruso, communications officer for the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation, and was scheduled for release Jan. 14. The Vatican published Pope Francis’ introduction Jan. 4.

Pope Francis’ highest praise for theologians always has been that they “do theology on their knees” in prayer and with love for the church.

“Benedict XVI did theology on his knees,” the pope wrote in the book’s introduction. “His explanation of the faith was carried out with the devotion of a man who has surrendered all of himself to God and who, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, sought an ever-greater participation in the mystery of that Jesus who had fascinated him from his youth.”

The new book’s title, Pope Francis said, “expresses one of the most characteristic aspects of my predecessor’s magisterium and vision of faith: yes, God is always new because he is the source and reason for beauty, grace and truth.”

“God is never repetitive, God surprises us, God brings newness,” the pope wrote, and the “spiritual freshness” of the late pope’s writings confirms those affirmations “with intensity.”

Pope Benedict, he said, offered all Christians a model showing how “heart and reason, thought and affection, rationality and emotion interact” in both living and explaining the power of the Gospel.

The selected quotations, Pope Francis said, offer “a sort of ‘spiritual synthesis’ of Benedict XVI’s writings,” and demonstrates “his ability to show the depth of the Christian faith ever anew.”

Quoting just six words of the late pope – “God is an event of love” – is enough to do “full justice to a theology that always shows the harmony between reason and affection,” the pope said.

Another book about the late pope also was scheduled for release in January.

The Italian publisher Piemme announced it would publish Jan. 12 a book, “Nient’altro che la Verità” (“Nothing but the Truth”) by the late pope’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.
Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, said Jan. 4 he had not spoken to the archbishop about the book so could not say if the publisher’s description was hype or reflected the contents of the book.

Piemme had said that with the death of Pope Benedict, “the time has come” for the archbishop “to tell the truth about the blatant calumnies and dark maneuvers that tried in vain to cast shadows on the German pontiff’s magisterium and actions.”

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Even the most fervent believers go through moments of doubt and questioning about God, and it is a good thing, Pope Francis said, because it helps one see that God does not fit into the little box people make for him.

Doubt “helps us understand that God is always greater than we imagine him to be. His works are surprising compared to our calculations; his actions are different, always, they exceed our needs and expectations; and therefore, we must never stop seeking him,” the pope told people joining him for the Angelus prayer Dec. 11.

People face a constant “temptation: to make ourselves a God to our measure, a God to use,” the pope said. But “God is something else.”

Pope Francis spoke about the day’s Gospel reading about how John the Baptist, while in prison, sent followers to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah even though John had earlier baptized Jesus in the Jordan.

With an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the midday prayer, the pope said sometimes people find themselves in an “inner jail,” unable to recognize the Lord or even trying to hold him “captive” to preconceived ideas about who God must be.

“Dear brothers and sisters, one never knows everything about God, never!” he said. “Perhaps we have in mind a powerful God who does what he wants, instead of the God of humble meekness, the God of mercy and love, who always intervenes respecting our freedom and our choices.”

And, he said, it is a temptation to think one knows everything about other people, too, using one’s prejudices “to attach rigid labels to others, especially those we feel are different from us.”
Advent, he said, is a time to let go and allow oneself to be surprised by God.

Especially as families prepare a Nativity scene or one goes to look at one set up somewhere, he said, it is an occasion to think about who the Lord really is and how to imitate him in daily life.

“Advent is a time in which, instead of thinking about gifts for ourselves, we can give words and gestures of consolation to those who are wounded, as Jesus did with the blind, the deaf and the lame,” the pope said.

After reciting the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis blessed figurines of the baby Jesus that hundreds of children had brought to the square in preparation to place them in Nativity scenes at home or at school.

He asked children “to pray before the creche that the nativity of the Lord will bring a ray of peace to children all over the world, especially those forced to live the terrible and dark days of war, this war in Ukraine that destroys many lives, so many lives, and many children.”

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A daily examination of conscience is an important tool for recognizing where God is at work in one’s life and where “the evil spirit” tries to lead one astray, Pope Francis said.

“Learn to read in the book of our hearts what has happened during the day. Do it. Just two minutes, but it will do you good, I promise,” the pope told visitors at his weekly general audience Nov. 30.

Continuing his series of audience talks about discernment, the pope spoke again about “spiritual consolation” and about using a daily examination of conscience to distinguish between what just feels good and “genuine consolation,” which, he said, “is a sort of confirmation that we are doing what God wants of us, that we are walking on his paths, that is, on the paths of life, joy and peace.”

Relying on the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, the pope explained that consolation comes from knowing that a thought or impulse is good at its beginning, middle and end, because it inclines one to do something good, is motivated by love for God and others and leads to a sense of peace.

On the other hand, the pope explained, “the evil spirit” can sneak in and distract one from doing good or sow anger toward others or pride.

Pope Francis used the example of the thought or urge to pray, accompanied by “affection for the Lord and my neighbor, it invites gestures of generosity, of charity: it is a good beginning.”

But, he said, if “every time I have to wash the dishes or clean the house, I have a strong urge to pray – this happens in convents” – then the impulse is not all good.

“Go wash the dishes, then go pray,” he said, because “prayer is not an escape from one’s tasks.”
And, the pope said, “if I begin to pray and, like the Pharisee in the parable, I tend to be self-satisfied and to disdain others, perhaps with a resentful and sour spirit, then these are signs that the evil spirit has used that thought as a key to enter into my heart and to transmit his feelings to me.”

Then, Pope Francis said, one should ask, “Where does that thought take me? For example, it can happen that I work hard for a good and worthy task, but this pushes me to stop praying; I find I am increasingly aggressive and angry, I feel that everything depends on me, to the point of losing confidence in God. Here, evidently, there is the action of the evil spirit.”

The devil’s style is “devious, masked,” the pope said, and he usually starts with something important to the person and then twists it.

“The more we know ourselves, the more we sense where the evil spirit enters, his ‘passwords,’ the entrance to our heart,” Pope Francis said.

“Before ending your day, stop a bit and ask what has happened (that day) – not in the newspapers,” he said, but in one’s heart.

“Noticing what happens is important,” he said. “It is a sign that God’s grace is working in us, helping us to grow in freedom and awareness. We are not alone; the Holy Spirit is with us. Let’s see how things are going.”

By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Treating everyone as a brother or sister is the clearest, most simple way to live the Gospel each day, Pope Francis said.

“It is an invitation without exclusion: brothers and sisters all in humanity and love,” the pope wrote in a message to members of FOCSIV, a federation of mostly Italy-based Catholic volunteer organizations that work internationally.

Representatives of the federation met the pope at the Vatican Nov. 14 as part of their celebration of the organization’s 50th anniversary. Twenty organizations founded the group in 1972; today it includes 94 organizations working in 80 countries.

Ivana Borsotto, the group’s president, told Pope Francis, “We seek to be a neighbor in the most abandoned peripheries, in the most remote villages, in the most inhumane prisons, along the cruelest migratory routes, in the most crowded refugee camps and in war-torn countries.”

In his prepared text, Pope Francis said development work, like what FOCSIV members promote in many of the world’s poorest countries, is the only real response to concerns about migration.

“Think of how many young people today are forced to leave their land in search of a dignified existence; how many men, women and children face inhumane journeys and violence of all kinds in order to seek a better tomorrow; how many continue to die on the routes of despair, while their fate is discussed or we turn away,” the pope wrote.

“Forced migration – to escape war, hunger, persecution or climate change – is one of the great evils of this age,” he wrote, and “we will only be able to address at its root by ensuring real development in every country.”

At the audience, Pope Francis asked Borsotto to deliver his prepared text to the members, but said he wanted to speak more about what was in his heart.

Volunteering is a characteristic of Italians and something not as common elsewhere, he told them. “It is one of the most beautiful things” because it involves making a free choice to go out and personally help someone in need.

“One has to take action. I can stay at home sitting quietly, watching TV or doing other things – no, I make this effort to go out,” he said. “Volunteering involves effort to go out to help others, that’s how it is. There is no desk volunteering and there is no television volunteering, no. Volunteering is always going out with an open heart, an outstretched hand, the legs ready to go.”

But it also involves meeting someone, listening to them and sharing with them, he said.

“We are living in a civilization of confrontation,” he said, and wars are just one sign of it.

“One clash after another and we never learn – not on a world level and not on a personal level,” Pope Francis said.

People even seem to define themselves by their opposition to someone or some idea, he said. It’s like they say, “’I don’t know who I am, but I am against this and against that.’ Their identity is being-against, clashing.”

But, he said, volunteering is “an ode to fraternity” and to recognizing that no matter the differences of culture or opinion, all people are brothers and sisters.