In today’s general audience, he remembered the 150 innocent people “machined” yesterday in northern Gaza by Israeli attacks. He asked once again to pray for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar and North Kivu: “No one wins in war.” Catechesis on Confirmation: “Let it not be a sacrament of farewell, but of active participation in the Church.”
Vatican City () – “150 innocent people”. The Pope remembered with disbelief the “first victims” of the wars – “yesterday I saw them being machine-gunned” – at the end of the general audience in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. “What do children have to do with war? Families?” he asked. Yesterday alone, more than 143 people died in Gaza, most in the city of Beit Lahiy, as a result of Israeli attacks. A new massacre is taking place while Israel’s expulsion of UNRWA puts the distribution of humanitarian aid in extreme difficulty. In five weeks in Lebanese territory, Save the Children denounces, more than 100 children were killed.
“Let us pray for peace,” Pope Francis once again tirelessly invited the numerous faithful gathered in the suggestive setting enclosed by Bernini’s colonnade, but at the same time connected to the whole world. “The war is growing. Let’s think about the countries that suffer so much. Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar, North Kivu and so many countries that are at war.” “Let us pray for peace,” he repeated again. “Peace is a gift of the Spirit and war is always, always, always, a defeat. In war no one wins, everyone loses,” he said on the last Wednesday of October, a clear and sunny day in Rome – “I apologize for reading so badly, but with the sun in your eyes it is not easy,” said Pope Francis, looking up from the pages with the text of the catechesis. “Let us pray for peace, brothers and sisters,” he repeated like a tireless litany.
During his greeting to the faithful and Italian-speaking pilgrims, as usual, Bergoglio dedicated a thought to the young, the elderly, the sick and the newlyweds. Addressing them, in view of the solemnity of All Saints, which is celebrated on Friday, November 1, he said: “I invite you to live this date of the liturgical year in which the Church wants to remember an aspect of its reality: the glory of the brothers and sisters who have preceded us on the path of life and who now, in the vision of the Father, want to be in communion with us to help us achieve the goal that awaits us.
In the catechism he shared at the beginning of the audience on the topic “He has anointed us and set his seal on us” – after the reading in several languages of a passage from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:14-17) – continued the cycle of teachings on the relationship between the Holy Spirit who guides the people of God and the Church. He then referred to the sacrament of Confirmation, which “is, par excellence, the Sacrament of the Holy Spirit.” And this “comes to us above all through two channels: the Word of God and the Sacraments.”
The passage from the Acts of the Apostles presents a “significant episode.” Peter and John go from Jerusalem to Samaria to meet those who had accepted the Word of God. “Then they laid hands on them and received the Holy Spirit,” the reading says. It is an action that gives the Spirit the meaning of “the royal seal with which Christ marks his sheep.” That rite – the anointing – has over time established itself as a sacrament in its own right. “So, if Baptism is the sacrament of birth, Confirmation is the sacrament of growth,” Pope Francis explained. The risk that exists today is that this stage of the journey of faith becomes the “sacrament of departure.” “It is said that it is the sacrament of farewell, because once young people receive it, they leave, and then return to get married. That’s what people say, but it must be turned into the sacrament of participation, of active participation in the life of the Church”.
It is a goal that seems impossible, but we must not stop trying. Indeed, “it will not be this way for all those confirmed, children or adults, but it is important that it be so at least for some, who will later be the animators of the community,” said the Holy Father. Confirmation is configured as a passage that involves not only the children, but also all the people who accompany them, “all of us and at all times.” Therefore, along with the anointing, the “advance of the Spirit” is given. “We must use this advance, taste these first fruits, not bury underground the charismas and talents that we have received,” said the Holy Father. And referring to the opening of the Holy Door in the Vatican on December 24, which will inaugurate the Ordinary Jubilee, he concluded: “This is a beautiful milestone for the Jubilee Year! To stir up the ashes of custom and disconnection, to become “, like those who carry the torch in the Olympic Games, as bearers of the flame of the Spirit. May the Spirit help us take some steps in this direction!”
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