At the general audience, the Pope praised China when he greeted the Association of Friends of Card. Celso Costantini, builder of bridges between East and West. He also referred to Refugee Day that the UN celebrates tomorrow: “States must work to offer humane conditions and integration.” The catechesis was dedicated to the Psalms: “There is no state of mind that does not find in them the best words to transform them into prayer.”
Vatican City () – “Let us always pray for the noble Chinese people, so brave and who have such a beautiful culture.” From St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis once again expressed his predilection for today’s China and invited all the faithful to pray for the “dear Chinese people.” The reason for these words was the presence among the pilgrims present at the general audience of a delegation from the Association of Friends of Cardinal Celso Costantini, which in the diocese of Concordia-Pordenone keeps alive the memory of this great man of the Church who makes exactly one century promoted the celebration of the first (and so far only) Chinese Council in Shanghai.
Precisely tomorrow the new book “Cardinal Celso Costantini and China” will be presented in Rome. Builder of a ‘bridge’ between East and West” – published by Marcianum Press and the Association that bears his name -, with a preface by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, in which he states that Cardinal Costantini’s path “traced a direction that the Church continues to this day.”
In his greeting to the faithful, Francis also recalled the World Refugee Day established by the United Nations, which will be celebrated tomorrow. “Let it be an opportunity to direct an attentive and fraternal gaze – he said – to all those who are forced to flee their homes in search of peace and security. We are all called to welcome, promote, accompany and integrate those who knock at our door. I pray that States work to guarantee humane conditions for refugees and facilitate integration processes.” He then invited – as he does every week – to continue praying for peace and remembered the tortured Ukraine, the Holy Land, Sudan, Myanmar “and all those places that suffer from war.” Let us pray every day for peace.”
Continuing the cycle of reflections on the Holy Spirit in his catechesis, Francis focused on that “symphony of prayer” that is the book of Psalms. “They are the songs that the Spirit Himself has placed on the lips of the Bride,” he explained, recalling her different “movements”: “praise, thanksgiving, supplication, lament, narration, wisdom reflection and others, both personally and in the choir of the entire town”.
“The psalms have occupied a privileged place in the New Testament,” he recalled. And if it is true that “not all psalms – and not everything of each psalm – can be repeated and assumed by Christians”, because sometimes they reflect a historical situation and a religious mentality that are no longer ours, “they were the prayer of Jesus, of Mary, of the Apostles and of all the Christian generations that preceded us. When we recite them – Francisco commented – God listens to them with that great ‘orchestration’ that is the communion of saints”.
However, we cannot live only on the inheritance of the past. That is why the Pope invited us to “make the psalms our prayer.” “If there are psalms, or just verses, that speak to our hearts, it is beautiful to repeat them and pray them during the day – he explained -. There is no mood or need that does not find in them the best words to transform them into prayer. Unlike all other prayers, the psalms do not lose their effectiveness with repetition, on the contrary, they increase it. Because? Because they are inspired by God and ‘expire’ to God every time they are read with faith.”
“If we feel oppressed by remorse and guilt – the pontiff exemplified – we can repeat with David: ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, for your goodness, for your great compassion’ (Ps 51:3). If we want to express a strong personal bond with God, we say: ‘Lord, you are my God, I ardently seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you like a thirsty, parched land without water’ (Ps 63:2). And if fear and anguish attack us, these wonderful words come to our aid: ‘The Lord is my shepherd. Even though he crosses through dark ravines, I will fear no evil’ (Ps 23,1.4)”.
“The psalms – the Pope concluded – allow us not to impoverish our prayer by reducing it only to asking for things. They help us open ourselves to a prayer less focused on ourselves: a prayer of praise, of blessing, of thanksgiving. And they also help us become the voice of all creation, involving it in our praise.”
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