2024-02-14 07:08:45
The Vatican media have broadcast the prologue written by the Pope Francisco for the journalist’s latest book Austen Ivereigh, ‘First Belongs to God: In Retreat with Pope Francis,’ published by Messenger Publications and Loyola Press. In his text, the pontiff denounces that “the deterioration of our common home and mass movements of people are symptoms of the ‘crisis of man’s non-belonging’ to God.”
Facing self-sufficiency
“When we make room for Lord who saves us from our self-sufficiency, we open ourselves to all creation and every creature, and we become channels of the life and love of the Father. Only then do we realize life as it really is: a gift from the Father “Who loves us deeply and wants us to belong to Him and to others,” the Pope explains based on the experience of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. For Francis, despite this conviction of faith “we continue to be tempted to close ourselves to that grace, to live worldlyin the illusion of being sovereign and self-sufficient.”
For Bergolio, “all the deadly crises that beset us in the world, from the ecological crisis to wars, injustices against the poor and the fragile, They are rooted in this rejection of our belonging to God and to the others.” Given this, the Pope vindicates the teachings of the Church as “channels of grace” to “receive the gifts that the Father wishes to pour out on us” such as the Spiritual Exercises promoted by the Loyola saint as a way to “recharge our batteries.”
“A Christian retreat It’s very different from ‘wellness’ vacations.. The center of attention is not us, but God, the Good Shepherd, who, instead of treating us like machines, responds to our deepest needs as his children with whom he is in love,” claims the pontiff. “Love and service: they are the two axes of the Spiritual Exercises. “Jesus comes out to meet us, breaks our chains so that we walk alongside him, as his disciples and companions,” he points out. “This is not the time to hunker down and lock ourselves in. I see clearly that the Lord calls us to get out of ourselves, to get up and walk. “He asks us not to distance ourselves from the pains and cries of our time, but to enter into them, opening channels of his grace,” encourages the Pope.
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