VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis asked Catholics world wide to hitch him in entrusting to Mary “the universal desire for peace, especially for the martyred Ukraine, which is suffering a lot.”
Reciting the Angelus prayer at midday Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis noted the Angel Gabriel’s words to Mary that “nothing will probably be unimaginable for God.”
“With God’s help, peace is feasible; disarmament is feasible,” the pope told people gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “But God wants our goodwill. May Our Lady help us to convert to God’s plans.”
The pope also invited people to hitch him late within the afternoon on the Spanish Steps in the middle of Rome, where he planned to pay homage to Mary at a statue of the Immaculate Conception after visiting the Basilica of St. Mary Major. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced the cancellation of the general public ceremony on the Spanish Steps in 2020 and 2021.
Reciting the Angelus prayer at midday Dec. 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Francis noted the Angel Gabriel’s words to Mary that “nothing will probably be unimaginable for God.”
In his Angelus talk at noon, Pope Francis said that while Catholics talk loads about original sin, they often overlook the “original grace” of baptism, when “God got here into our lives and we became his beloved children endlessly.”
The feast of the Immaculate Conception, which celebrates Mary having been conceived without original sin, is a very good time to do not forget that “we sinners, too, have received an initial gift that has filled our life, a very good greater than anything, an original grace, of which frequently, nonetheless, we’re unaware.”
The feast day is a time to hearken to God who says, “‘Son, daughter, I really like you and I’m with you mostly, you’re essential for me, your life is precious,’” the pope said. “When things don’t go well and we’re discouraged, after we are downcast and risk feeling useless or mistaken, allow us to take into consideration this, about this original grace.”
And, he said, it is an ideal day to do not forget that Mary will probably be with every person as she or he tries to fight temptation and to live within the fullness of their baptismal “original grace.”
The pope began crying and needed to pause for a moment after he prayed, “Immaculate Virgin, today I’d have liked to bring you the thanksgiving of the Ukrainian people for the peace we’ve long asked the Lord for.”
“We who struggle to decide on what is nice, we are able to entrust ourselves to her,” the pope said. “Entrusting ourselves, consecrating ourselves to Mary, we are saying to her: ‘Take me by the hand, lead me: with you I may have more strength within the battle against evil, with you I’ll rediscover my original beauty.’”
Ukraine was still on the pope’s mind 4 hours later when he went to the Spanish Steps in the course of Rome’s major shopping district, where he was joined by 1000’s and 1000’s of tourists and Romans having fun with the feast day public holiday.
As a substitute of creating a speech on the foot of the Marian statue, Pope Francis all the time recites a prayer he has written for the occasion, summarizing the prayers and desires of the town and its residents, especially those that, like him, leave flowers.
Just as Mary was on the foot of the cross when Jesus was dying, “everyone knows that you simply are with them” in Ukraine and in all places people suffer due to war, Pope Francis said.
The pope asked Mary also to “see and welcome those invisible flowers” representing “so many invocations, so many silent supplications, sometimes stifled, hidden but not from you, who’re mother.”
However the pope began crying and needed to pause for a moment after he prayed, “Immaculate Virgin, today I’d have liked to bring you the thanksgiving of the Ukrainian people for the peace we’ve long asked the Lord for.”
Encouraged by the crowed to go on, the pope, sniffling, told Mary, “As a substitute, again I have to present to you the supplication of the kids, of the elderly, of the fathers and moms, of the young people of that martyred land.”
Just as Mary was on the foot of the cross when Jesus was dying, “everyone knows that you simply are with them” in Ukraine and in all places people suffer due to war, Pope Francis said.
Seeking to Mary conceived without sin, he said, Christians proceed “to imagine and hope that hatred will probably be vanquished by love; that over lies, the reality may prevail; that over offense, forgiveness will win; (and) that over war, peace will probably be victorious.”
