Nov. 27, 2013 Wednesday: General Audience, Pope Francis
Pope Francis Promotes Year of Faith ‘Spiritual Medicine’
At the end of the Holy Father’s Angelus address, volunteers distributed small boxes containing rosaries and Divine Mercy prayer cards to the assembled pilgrims.
At the close of his Angelus address today, Pope Francis encouraged those in St. Peter’s Square to pick up a little box of spiritual medicine on their way out.
“I would like, now, for all of you to consider a medicine. But some may think, ‘The Pope is being a pharmacist now?’ It is a special medicine to make the fruit of the Year of Faith that is coming to a close more concrete,” said Pope Francis Nov. 17, as he raised a little box for the crowd to see.
The boxes, packaged to resemble actual medication, contained rosaries and Divine Mercy prayer cards.
“This little box contains the medicine, and some volunteers will distribute it to you as you leave the square. Take it! It’s a rosary with which one can pray also the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, spiritual help for our souls and for spreading love, forgiveness and brotherhood everywhere.”
“Don’t forget to take it,” he repeated as the crowds cheered. “Because it does good, eh? It does good for the heart, for the soul, for all of life.”
Pope Francis had earlier emphasized the need for faith and trust in God in the face of life’s difficulties.
Like the apostles in Sunday’s Gospel, many people find themselves worried about losing faith in the last days. But Jesus reminds his followers, “First: Don’t let yourselves be deceived by false messiahs, and don’t let yourselves be paralyzed by fear. Second: Live the time of waiting as a time of witness and of perseverance,” recounted Pope Francis.
“This discourse of Jesus is always current, even for those of us who live in the 21st century,” the Holy Father reflected. “We are in a time of waiting, of waiting for the coming of the Lord.”
“We remember that we are totally in the hands of the Lord!”
“The adversities that we meet for our faith and our adherence to the Gospel are occasions for witness; they must not distance us from the Lord, but push us to abandon ourselves again and more to him, to the power of his Spirit and his grace,” he encouraged.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-promotes-year-of-faith-spiritual-medicine/#ixzz2m1Zt90xt
At the end of the Holy Father’s Angelus address, volunteers distributed small boxes containing rosaries and Divine Mercy prayer cards to the assembled pilgrims.
“I would like, now, for all of you to consider a medicine. But some may think, ‘The Pope is being a pharmacist now?’ It is a special medicine to make the fruit of the Year of Faith that is coming to a close more concrete,” said Pope Francis Nov. 17, as he raised a little box for the crowd to see.
The boxes, packaged to resemble actual medication, contained rosaries and Divine Mercy prayer cards.
“This little box contains the medicine, and some volunteers will distribute it to you as you leave the square. Take it! It’s a rosary with which one can pray also the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, spiritual help for our souls and for spreading love, forgiveness and brotherhood everywhere.”
“Don’t forget to take it,” he repeated as the crowds cheered. “Because it does good, eh? It does good for the heart, for the soul, for all of life.”
Pope Francis had earlier emphasized the need for faith and trust in God in the face of life’s difficulties.
Like the apostles in Sunday’s Gospel, many people find themselves worried about losing faith in the last days. But Jesus reminds his followers, “First: Don’t let yourselves be deceived by false messiahs, and don’t let yourselves be paralyzed by fear. Second: Live the time of waiting as a time of witness and of perseverance,” recounted Pope Francis.
“This discourse of Jesus is always current, even for those of us who live in the 21st century,” the Holy Father reflected. “We are in a time of waiting, of waiting for the coming of the Lord.”
“We remember that we are totally in the hands of the Lord!”
“The adversities that we meet for our faith and our adherence to the Gospel are occasions for witness; they must not distance us from the Lord, but push us to abandon ourselves again and more to him, to the power of his Spirit and his grace,” he encouraged.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-promotes-year-of-faith-spiritual-medicine/#ixzz2m1Zt90xt
