Vatican judge says case a ‘construction site’ as trial is postponed

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Catholic News Service
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Vatican judge Giuseppe Pignatone listens during the third session of the trial of six defendants accused of financial crimes, at the Vatican City State criminal court in this Nov. 17, 2021, file photo. At the fifth session of the Vatican trial Dec. 14, Pignatone said the complicated case was "a construction site" and expressed his hope that by mid-February the trial would begin to focus on the key accusations. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican judge gave prosecutors more time to build their case against several defendants accused of financial malfeasance and corruption.

At the fifth session of the Vatican trial Dec. 14, Giuseppe Pignatone, president of the Vatican City State criminal court, said the complicated case was “a construction site” and expressed his hope that by mid-February, the trial would begin to focus on the key accusations.

Another hearing devoted to procedural matters will take place Jan. 25, he said.

The Vatican court originally had brought to trial 10 individuals, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, former prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, and four companies on charges involving financial malfeasance and corruption in relation to a multimillion-dollar property deal in London.

But in October, the court ordered the prosecution to redo its investigations of four of the defendants and the four companies.

Cardinal Becciu, who has attended every court session, was the only defendant present Dec. 14, while the remaining five were represented by their lawyers.

In a statement released by the Vatican press office, the prosecution said its office is complying with the court’s order to reinvestigate the charges against the four defendants and will complete its work “by mid-January 2022.”

However, “it should be noted that, to date, only one of the suspects invited to appear has responded to the summons and was available for questioning,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Cardinal Becciu’s lawyers have questioned the fairness of the accusations against him, saying that he was not given the opportunity to give a statement to prosecutors during their investigation, while Msgr. Alberto Perlasca, the former head of the Vatican Secretariat of State’s administrative office, went from suspect to star witness.

At his first hearing in July, Cardinal Becciu, who has filed lawsuits against several news agencies for libel and/or defamation, told journalists that he instructed his lawyers to file a similar lawsuit against Msgr. Perlasca.

However, according to Dec. 13 report by Italian news agency Adnkronos, a court in the northern Italian town of Como dismissed the lawsuit, which sought 500,000 euros ($565,862) in damages.

Cardinal Becciu’s lawyers accused Msgr. Perlasca and Genoveffa Ciferri, a friend of the monsignor, of engaging in “persecutory conduct,” including “false accusations” and “threats” against the cardinal and his family.

But Judge Lorenzo Azzi ruled that there was “no evidence, in the plaintiff’s narrative, of any concrete damaging conduct” by Msgr. Perlasca or Ciferri and that the cardinal’s claims were based mainly on “press articles of dubious relevance and probatory value.”

 

Despite age, surgery, the pope is still energetic, his nephew says

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Catholic News Service
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Pope Francis blows out a candle on a 13-foot-long pizza as he celebrates his 81st birthday at the Vatican in this Dec. 17, 2017, file photo. The pope will celebrate his 85th birthday Dec. 17 and, according to his nephew, Jesuit Father JosÈ Luis Narvaja, he is still energetic and rarin' to go. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS) — Pope Francis will turn 85 years old Dec. 17. And according to his nephew, Jesuit Father José Luis Narvaja, he is still rarin’ to go.

“I see him doing very well, with so much strength; really, he doesn’t seem to be 85,” the Argentine priest told the Italian Catholic magazine, Famiglia Cristiana, for its Dec.12 issue.

Father Narvaja, who is the son of the pope’s youngest sister, the late Marta Regina Bergoglio, said he visited his uncle, the pope, right after his colon surgery in July. Even then, “he was doing well but he was still in a bit of pain, and he told me, ‘Don’t make me laugh, the stitches hurt!'” he said.

“He is very active, enthusiastic, he doesn’t stop. He said some people had hoped his illness would make him shut up a little, but it didn’t. He’s doing very well,” said Father Narvaja, who teaches patristics and divides his time between Rome and Cordoba, Argentina.

Speaking about his uncle’s approach to his ministry as pontiff, the fellow Jesuit said, “He does what he feels the Spirit is asking of him.”

Pope Francis’ idea of reform “is to put Christ at the center of the church and our lives, and this is a process that takes time,” he said. “Of course, sometimes he feels he has to say a harsh word, but he knows he is an instrument of God.”

Making Jesus the central point “does not mean putting a statue in the center of the house but listening to Jesus to understand what he wants from each of us, allowing him to transform our hearts,” said Father Narvaja.

“The pope is not a manager. It is Jesus who, by being at the center, puts things in place,” he said, and the pope feels “he has to give time to transform hearts, which is what Jesus does.”

“Sometimes we think that the Spirit spoke in ancient times and doesn’t speak any longer and, therefore, we do not want to change anything,” Father Narvaja said. “But the Spirit continues to speak to us, he speaks to the church, and we must make sure that the Lord continues his work through us.”

“The Spirit,” he said, “makes things new — not by magic, but through us.”

 

Pilgrims return to Guadalupe basilica but in smaller numbers

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Catholic News Service
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Pilgrims carry an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe outside the basilica in her name in Mexico City Dec. 11, 2021, the eve of her feast day. Millions of pilgrims descended on the basilica during the first 12 days of December, renewing a tradition and act of faith common throughout central Mexico. (CNS photo/Luis Cortes, Reuters)

By David Agren, Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY (CNS) — Jesús Martínez Aguilar walked two days from the state of Puebla to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, arriving at dusk on the eve of the Dec. 12 feast day. He posed for a selfie with his family at the basilica’s gates, then prepared to enter and give thanks to the patroness.

“I felt bad not coming here last year,” said Martínez, 68, a tamale vendor who has made an annual pilgrimage to the basilica for the past 38 years — except in 2020, when church and civic authorities closed the site due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s special for us,” he said after arriving. “We’ve come to see the Virgin again.”

Millions of pilgrims descended on the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe during the first 12 days of December, renewing a tradition and act of faith common throughout central Mexico.

Pilgrims celebrated the national patroness: a dark-skinned Virgin, who Catholics believe appeared before Indigenous farmer, St. Juan Diego, at Tepeyac Hill in northern Mexico City in 1531.

Nearly 500 years after the apparition, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues drawing a deep devotion throughout Latin America, the Philippines and in immigrant communities of the United States.

She has become a symbol of national identity in Mexico, inspiring social movements throughout the country’s history. Even the ruling political party has leveraged her appeal, calling itself “MORENA,” a word for a dark-skinned woman and a popular name for the patroness.

But pilgrims at the basilica spoke of personal, not political reasons for traveling to the world’s most visited Marian shrine.

“We’ve come to ask for health, for her to care for us and out of faith,” said Tomás Santiago Coapio, 25, who arrived with a pack of cyclists from outlying Tlaxcala state.

When asked about not visiting in 2020, he responded: “It’s like if you couldn’t visit your mother. How would you feel?”

Roberto Acosta, a 35-year-old lawyer, also cycled to the basilica, riding 12 hours with a pair of friends from the city of Puebla. It was his first visit to the site, he said.

“I’m not very religious,” he told CNS, adding he would “give thanks for favors received.” Those favors, he said, included “work, health, not getting sick with COVID again,” after the illness claimed his wife last year.

Church officials urged pilgrims to keep their visits brief and canceled in-person liturgical celebrations.

City officials channeled pilgrims through the surrounding neighborhoods to a single entrance — spraying visitors with disinfectant at the basilica gates — and prohibiting people from camping on-site. An estimated 3.5 million pilgrims arrived in 2021, less than half the number that visited in 2019.

A migrant caravan, which set out from Tapachula near the Guatemalan border, arrived in Mexico City Dec. 12 with plans to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but was impeded by local police. The caravan eventually arrived at the basilica, however, and its participants were provided lodging in facilities normally provided to pilgrims.

 

Pope: Through Mary, Latin America can move toward conversion, renewal

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Catholic News Service
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An image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is seen as pilgrims mark the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with songs and the recitation of the rosary in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Dec. 12, 2021. (CNS photo/Junno Arocho Esteves)

By Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Festive music, dancing and prayers in honor of Mary echoed through St. Peter’s Square as hundreds gathered to commemorate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The sounds of Mexican mariachi brought much needed warmth on a chilly Roman morning Dec. 12 to honor the patroness of the Americas and the Philippines whose apparition to St. Juan Diego on Tepeyac hill in Mexico continues to bring hope in uncertain times.

“This experience must be repeated over and over again,” Pope Francis told pilgrims during his Sunday Angelus address. “In this way, God, who is communion, will move us toward conversion and the renewal of the church and of society that we need so much in the Americas — the situation in many Latin American countries is very sad — as well as throughout the world.”

Waiting to hear the pope’s words, pilgrims stood near the famed obelisk in the center of the square where a large replica of St. Juan Diego’s tilma, which bears the image of Mary, stood adorned with white roses and surrounded by the flags of all the countries of Latin America.

Among those present to mark the feast were Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute secretary for general affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Several pilgrims were dressed in traditional Indigenous clothing while others reenacted the moment when, in 1531, St. Juan Diego unfurled his mantle and revealed the miraculous image of Mary.

After the recitation of the rosary in Spanish, Portuguese and Filipino, Cardinal Ouellet led pilgrims in a final prayer for Mary’s maternal intercession so that she would help all Christians “to see the face of Jesus in every person, especially in those most excluded and marginalized.”

“Preserve the peace in our peoples and move the hearts of the violent, so that their hate may end, and they may find in your son the path to transform their lives,” he prayed.

Seeing the many flags from Latin America from the window of the Apostolic Palace, the pope addressed the pilgrims in Spanish and welcomed those “who from Alaska to Patagonia are celebrating Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the true God by whom we live.”

Looking ahead to the 500th anniversary of the Marian apparition in 2031, Pope Francis said such “acts of faith and public witness” help bring Mary’s message of hope to those most in need.

“May the Virgin of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego teach us how to always walk together from the peripheries toward the center in communion with the successor of the apostles, who are the bishops, to bear good news to everyone,” the pope said.

 

Mourning, prayer and a resolve to rebuild follow devastating tornadoes

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Catholic News Service
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Debris surrounds a destroyed home in Mayfield, Ky., Dec. 11, 2021, after a devastating tornado ripped through the town. More than 30 tornadoes were reported across six states late Dec. 10, and early Dec. 11, killing dozens of people and leaving a trail of devastation. (CNS photo/Cheney Orr, Reuters)

MAYFIELD, Ky. (CNS) — Mourning, prayer and a resolve to rebuild shattered lives, homes and businesses in Mayfield followed one of the most powerful twisters in U.S. history that leveled the city of 10,000 in western Kentucky overnight Dec. 10.

The Bluegrass State was the worst hit as numerous devastating tornadoes traveled across it and its neighboring states of Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas and Missouri, leveling entire communities.

As of Dec. 14, at least 74 people were confirmed dead in Kentucky, including a 2-month-old infant; 109 people remained unaccounted for.

At least 14 other people were killed in the other states: six in Illinois, four in Tennessee, and two each in Arkansas and Missouri.

As members of two of Mayfield’s faith congregations came together to pray Dec. 12 amid rubble — piles of brick, metal and glass — prayers for their city and all of those affected by the ferocious mid-December twisters came from far and wide, including from Pope Francis and the U.S. Catholic bishops, and from close to home — Bishop William F. Medley of Owensboro, whose diocese covers western Kentucky.

A papal telegram conveyed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said Pope Francis “was saddened to learn of the devastating impact of the tornadoes” in the Midwest and the South.

“He offers heartfelt prayers that almighty God will grant eternal peace to those who have died, comfort to those who mourn their loss, and strength to all those affected by this immense tragedy,” it said.

“With gratitude for the tireless efforts of the rescue workers and all engaged in caring for the injured, the grieving families and those left homeless, Pope Francis invokes upon all engaged in the massive work of relief and rebuilding the Lord’s gifts of strength and generous perseverance in the service of their brothers and sisters,” said the telegram, which Cardinal Parolin sent to Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio in the U.S.

Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said the destruction and devastation was “heartbreaking” and called for prayer and assistance for all those who were in the path of the storms.

“During this Advent season where we await in joyful anticipation for the birth of our Lord, we pray for those who have been injured, for those who have lost their lives, and for their grieving families and communities,” said Archbishops Gomez and Coakley. “May those who have been impacted by these storms find peace, comfort and hope in our faith and in God’s endless love.

“We also pray for the emergency responders and those who have begun the work of providing for the needs of the impacted in these communities in the recovery efforts,” they said in a statement issued late Dec. 11. “We entrust all our brothers and sisters in harm’s way to our Blessed Mother, and we ask for her continued protection and for her intercession in comforting those who are suffering.”

The two prelates urged Catholics and all people of goodwill to donate to recovery efforts and financial help for tornado victims by supporting the work of Catholic Charities USA: https://www.catholiccharities.us/campaign/ccusa-disaster-relief/c353051.

Bishop Medley in a Dec. 11 statement called on the Catholic community of the diocese “to unite in prayer … for all of the suffering that was caused by this disaster.”

He asked all parishes to take up a special collection over the Dec. 11-12 weekend to aid tornado victims.

The bishop also took note of the leveling of Mayfield’s candle factory, where 110 employees were working around the clock, which is customary during the Christmas season, according to news reports.

Initially, city officials feared the death toll among factory workers would reach 70. Late Dec. 12, a company representative told reporters that eight workers were confirmed dead, and a day later the workers who had been missing were accounted for.

“Many of those injured in the Mayfield candle factory were parishioners, and others represented migrants and the marginalized in our communities,” Bishop Medley said in his statement.

He added that through its Catholic Charities office, the diocese planned “to offer immediate help and services” for those displaced by the tornado and/or in need of immediate emergency financial help.

“I am proud of the many ways that your generosity always allows the Catholic Church to respond to the suffering and to families in crisis,” Bishop Medley said. “So I thank you in advance for your generous response to this terrible devastation. God will bless our generosity.”

In a Dec. 12 tweet, Bishop Medley said he visited the Catholic community of St. Joseph Church in Mayfield: “Fr. Eric Riley, the pastor, preached on the Advent and Our Lady of Guadalupe themes of hope and joy. Neighboring parish St. Jerome of Fancy Farm welcomed them.”

At a news briefing Dec. 12 in Mayfield, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear noted one tornado traveled 227 miles. “It didn’t take a roof, which is what we’ve seen in the past. It exploded the whole house. People, animals … just gone.”

“The very first thing that we have to do is grieve together,” he said, “and we’re going to do that before we rebuild together.”

 

Disability or chronic illness does not make life less sacred, pope says

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Catholic News Service
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Pope Francis greets a child during an audience with a pilgrimage group from the Istituto Serafico at the Vatican Dec. 13, 2021. The institute in Assisi provides education, rehabilitation and social services to people with disabilities. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Every human being is precious and has a value that does not depend on his or her abilities, but on the fact that he or she is a person created in the image of God, Pope Francis said.

“If disability or illness makes life more difficult, it is no less worthy of being lived, and lived to the full. After all, who among us does not have limitations and does not, sooner or later, come up against limitations, even serious ones?” he said during an audience Dec. 13 in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall.

The pope was speaking to staff and students of the Seraphic Institute of Assisi, which specializes in education, rehabilitation and care for children and young people with disabilities; the institute was celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“The most important thing is the spirit with which you all dedicate yourselves to this mission,” Pope Francis told them.

“It is clear to you, as it should be to everyone, that every human person is precious, has a value that does not depend on what he or she has or on his or her abilities, but on the simple fact that he or she is a person, the image of God,” he said.

People with disabilities must be seen “as one of us, who must be at the center of our care and our concern, and also at the center of everyone’s attention and of policies. This is a goal of civilization,” he said.

A person with a disability “not only receives, but gives,” which means that providing assistance and care is not “a one-way gesture, but an exchange of gifts,” he said.

Everyone, not just Christians, can recognize this truth because it is inscribed “in our conscience, which makes us feel our condition of unity among all human beings. We are truly connected by a bond of fraternity,” he said.

 

Vatican releases text for installing catechists, explains ministry

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Catholic News Service
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Abraham Luque, a catechist from the Scalabrinian Parish of Our Lady of the Perpetual Help, prays during a Christmas event at the Scalabrini welcome center in Lima, Peru, in this Dec. 16, 2018, file photo. In May 2021 formally instituted the ministry of catechist. (CNS photo/Oscar Durand)

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Catholic men and women formally installed in the new ministry of catechists are not simply religious education teachers but are engaged in “the proclamation and transmission of the faith, carrying out this role in collaboration with the ordained ministers and under their guidance,” said a letter accompanying the Latin text of the Rite of Institution of Catechists.

Archbishop Arthur Roche, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, released the Latin text and a letter Dec. 13, seven months after Pope Francis instituted the “ministry of catechist” as a formal office and vocation in the church.

Bishops’ conferences will be responsible for translating the rite into their local languages and seeking Vatican approval for local adaptations, which are expected given the variety of roles catechists play in different parts of the world.

In 2022, Archbishop Roche said, his office would release the revised text for the Rite for the Institution of Lectors and Acolytes, a ministry Pope Francis opened to women in January.

“The term ‘catechist’ indicates different realities in relation to the ecclesial context in which it is used,” Archbishop Roche wrote. “Catechists in mission territories differ from those working in churches of long-standing tradition. Moreover, individual ecclesial experiences also produce very different characteristics and patterns of action, so much so that it is difficult to give it a unitary and synthetic description.”

In different parts of the world, he said, formally recognized catechists can be found “guiding community prayer, especially the Sunday liturgy in the absence of a priest or deacon; assisting the sick; leading funeral celebrations; training and guiding other catechists; coordinating pastoral initiatives; human promotion according to the church’s social doctrine; helping the poor; fostering the relationship between the community and the ordained ministers.”

Archbishop Roche said people should not be surprised by the “breadth and variety of functions” associated with catechists because “the exercise of this lay ministry fully expresses the consequences of being baptized and, in the particular situation of the lack of a stable presence of ordained ministers, it is a participation in their pastoral action.”

“This is what the Code of Canon Law affirms when it provides for the possibility of entrusting to a non-ordained person a share in the exercise of pastoral care in a parish, always under the moderation of a priest,” he wrote. “It is necessary, therefore, to form the community so that it does not see the catechist as a substitute for the priest or deacon, but as a member of the lay faithful who lives their baptism in fruitful collaboration and shared responsibility with the ordained ministers, so that their pastoral care may reach everyone.”

Those chosen for the ministry of catechist, he said, are to be called by their bishop and instituted in what the church calls a “stable” way. While the specific terms of their ministry are up to the local bishop, they are installed in the ministry only once and for a substantial period of time.

Archbishop Roche also include a list of those who “should not be instituted as catechists”:

  • “Those who have already begun their journey toward holy orders and in particular have been admitted among the candidates for the diaconate and the priesthood,” because the ministry of catechist is a lay ministry.
  • “Men and women religious — irrespective of whether they belong to Institutes whose charism is catechesis — unless they act as leaders of a parish community or coordinators of catechetical activity.”
  • “Those who carry out a role exclusively for the members of an ecclesial movement” since that role is assigned by leaders of the movement and not by the diocesan bishop.
  • “Those who teach Catholic religion in schools, unless they also carry out other ecclesiastical tasks in the service of the parish or diocese.”

The pope’s institution of a formal ministry of catechist, he said, also should not end the practice of all a parish’s or school’s religion teachers being commissioned and given a mandate at the beginning of each school year.

 

When religious authority is not service, people are harmed, pope says

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Catholic News Service
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Pope Francis arrives for an audience with members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life at the Vatican Dec. 11, 2021. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When the superior of a religious community does not live his or her authority as a form of service, the result is an abuse of power that harms individuals and can destroy a vocation, Pope Francis said.

Meeting members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life Dec. 11, the pope said such abuse is illustrated in a recent Italian book, “Il Velo del Silenzio” (“Veil of Silence”), by Salvatore Cernuzio.

The book features interviews with 11 women, most of whom had been in cloistered religious communities, many of them orders founded in the past 50 years. One of the women was sexually assaulted by a priest but was told by her superiors that she must have led him on. The others recount abuses of power and psychological or emotional abuse, mainly through acts of cruelty, humiliation and a denial of medical or psychological assistance.

The women told Cernuzio those repeated acts of cruelty took place under the pretext of teaching the women obedience.

Pope Francis told members of the Vatican dicastery that their task is to “discern and accompany. Accompany especially the communities of recent foundation, which are also more exposed to the risk of being self-referential.”

The founders of new communities, he said, “sometimes tend to be self-referential, to feel that they are the sole custodians or interpreters of the charism, as if they were above the church.”

But every authentic charism inspiring the foundation of a new community, the pope said, “is born in the church, it grows and can bear evangelical fruit only in the church, in the living communion of the faithful people of God.”

When a local bishop and the members of the Vatican congregation are approached with a suggestion for a new community, the pope said, an essential question to ask is: “Is this institute capable of integrating itself into the life of the holy faithful people of God or not?”

A vocation to religious life is a precious but often fragile thing that must be supported with great care, the pope said, and that care for vocations obviously includes being very careful about how authority over the candidate is exercised.

The other issue with authority, he said, is “the duration of mandates and the accumulation of powers, and attention to abuses of authority and power.”

In discerning whether a new institute or new form of consecrated life or new community is truly inspired by the Holy Spirit for the good of the entire church, local bishops and Vatican staff must work together, the pope said.

“This collaboration, this synergy between the dicastery and the bishops also makes it possible to avoid — as the (Second Vatican) Council asks — the inappropriate creation of institutes lacking sufficient motivation or adequate vigor, perhaps with good will, but something is missing,” he said.

 

Prepare for Christmas by serving others, pope says

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Catholic News Service
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A figurine of the baby Jesus is seen as people gather in St. Peter's Square for the Angelus led by Pope Francis at the Vatican Dec. 12, 2021. Children brought their Nativity figurines of baby Jesus to be blessed by the pope. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Junno Arocho Esteves, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With Christmas just over a week away, Christians should prepare for Jesus’ birth by serving those in need rather than focusing on what awaits them under the Christmas tree, Pope Francis said.

“We are so busy with all the preparations, with gifts and things that pass,” the pope said Dec. 12 during his Sunday Angelus address. “But let’s ask ourselves what we should do for Jesus and for others! What should we do?”

Many children along with their families came to St. Peter’s Square with their baby Jesus figurines for a traditional blessing by the pope.

Assuring them that he would bless their statues after praying the Angelus, Pope Francis greeted the little ones and asked them to take “my Christmas greetings to your grandparents and all your dear ones.”

In his main address, the pope reflected on the Sunday Gospel reading from St. Luke which recalled the crowds of people who, after being moved by St. John the Baptist’s preaching, asked him, “What should we do?”

Their question “does not stem from a sense of duty” but from their hearts being “touched by the Lord,” and their being enthusiastic for his coming.

Just like the preparations people make to welcome a guest to their home by cleaning and preparing “the best dinner possible,” Christians must do “the same with the Lord,” he said.

St. Luke’s Gospel, the pope added, also encourages one to ask, “What should I do with my life? What am I called to? What will I become?”

“By suggesting this question, the Gospel reminds us of something important: Life has a task for us. Life is not meaningless; it is not left up to chance. No! It is a gift the Lord grants us, saying to us: Discover who you are, and work hard to make the dream that is your life come true!”

The pope encouraged Christians to prepare for Christmas by continuously asking God what should they do for themselves and others in order to contribute to the good of the church and society.

St. John the Baptist’s answers, he said, responded to each individual in a way that fit his or her situation in life, a reminder from the Gospel that “life is incarnated” in concrete situations.

“Faith is not an abstract theory, a generalized theory; no!” he said. “Faith touches us personally and transforms each of our lives. Let us think about the concreteness of our faith. Is my faith abstract, something abstract or concrete? Does it lead me to serve others, to help out?”

Pope Francis said there are several ways people can serve others during Advent, including by doing “something concrete, even if it is small” to help others,” especially by visiting the lonely, the elderly, the sick or someone in need.

Then the pope added to the list: “Maybe I need to ask forgiveness, grant forgiveness, clarify a situation, pay a debt. Perhaps I have neglected prayer and after so much time has elapsed, it’s time to ask the Lord for forgiveness.”

“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “let’s find something concrete and do it!”

 

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