to stop the hurricane of violence in Ukraine

During today’s general audience, Francis made a new appeal for peace in Ukraine, after the rain of bombings in the last few hours. Today’s catechesis, on discernment, focused on the theme of desire: “Today’s society has reduced desire to the desire of the moment and thus we do not understand what it is that we really want”.

Vatican City () – May the Lord “transform the hearts of those who hold the fate of war in their hands so that the hurricane of violence ceases and peaceful coexistence in justice is rebuilt”. At the end of the general audience Today, before thousands of faithful present in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis once again made an appeal for Ukraine, shocked by the rain of missiles in recent days.

““These days, my heart always goes out to the Ukrainian people, especially to the inhabitants of the towns where the bombardments have intensified. I carry your pain within me and, through the intercession of the Holy Mother of God, I present it in prayer to the Lord. He always listens to the cry of the poor who invoke him”.

In the general audience, continuing his catechesis on discernment and after having addressed the topic of prayer and self-knowledge, Pope Francis spoke of a third ingredient that teachers of spirituality consider essential for this dimension of Christian life: desire. Recalling its etymology – “sidusliterally ‘the lack of the star’ – the pontiff explained that desire “evokes suffering, a lack, and at the same time a tension to reach the good that is lacking”. “It is the compass to understand where I am and where I am going, moreover, it is the compass to understand if I am stopped or walking, a person who never desires, is a static person, perhaps ill, almost dead”.

And how is it possible to recognize desire? The Holy Father specified that “unlike the desire or the emotion of the moment, the desire lasts over time, even a long time, and tends to materialize.” “Desire makes you strong, it gives you courage, it makes you always go forward because you want to get there.”

“It is striking that Jesus, before performing a miracle, often asks the person about their wish: do you want to be healed? And sometimes this question seems to be out of place”, because it is seen that the person is sick. But Jesus’ question is “an invitation to clarify one’s heart” because “dialoguing with the Lord, we learn to understand what we really want from our life”. This question especially shakes us from alibis and complaints, which are “poison for the soul, poison for life, because they do not make you want to continue. Be careful with complaints: when spouses complain about each other , when the children complain about the father or when the priests complain about the bishop or the bishops about so many other things… It’s almost a sin, because complaining doesn’t let desire grow.”

“The time in which we live – the Pontiff specified – seems to favor the maximum freedom of choice, but at the same time stunts desire, which in general is reduced to the desire of the moment. We are bombarded by thousands of proposals, projects, possibilities, which risk distracting us and not allowing us to calmly assess what we really want. The risk is “passing the existence between attempts and issues of various kinds, without ever getting anywhere, or wasting valuable opportunities. And so, some changes, which we theoretically want, even when the opportunity arises, are never made.”

If the Lord asked us the question he asked the blind man in Jericho: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk 10,51), what would we answer? Perhaps, we could finally ask him to help us to know the deep desire for him, which God himself has placed in our hearts. It is an immense grace, which is at the base of all the others: letting the Lord perform miracles for us, as in the Gospel: ‘Give us the desire and make it grow, Lord'”.