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Vatican City, May 2, 2016 / 09:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- It is the Holy Spirit who gives Christians the ability to be witnesses of the Gospel in their daily lives, Pope Francis said Monday during Mass at the Santa Marta residence's chapel. However, with that witness comes persecution.

“The Christian,  with the strength of the Spirit,” the Roman Pontiff said, “gives witness to the living Lord, to the Risen Lord, to the Lord’s presence in our midst, that the Lord celebrates with us His death, His Resurrection, each time we come to the altar.”

“The Christian too gives witness, aided by the Spirit, in his daily life, through the way in which he acts. It is the continuous witness of the Christian.  But many times this witness provokes attacks, provokes persecution.”

During his May 2 homily, Pope Francis spoke of the witness Christ shares through his Spirit, and the witness of the faithful – especially in periods of persecution.

Such persecution, he said may take the form of “little persecutions,” such as gossip and criticism, or more serious forms, such as those which “place Christians or make them even give up their lives.”

Citing Christ, the Pope said this is price of the Christian's witness: “They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.”

Pope Francis reflected on the day's first reading from Acts, which recounts God opening the heart of a purple-cloth dealer named Lydia, who had come to listen to St. Paul's preaching.

“This woman felt something inside her which made her say ‘this is true! And I agree with what this man says, this man who gives witness to Jesus Christ,’” the Pope said.

He asked who it was that “touched the heart of this woman,” and told her to listen to the truth?  

“It was the Holy Spirit who made this woman feel that Jesus was the Lord,” he said. “It made her know that salvation was in Paul’s words; it made this woman hear witness.  The Spirit gives witness to Jesus.”

The Roman Pontiff said every time our heart is moved to draw “closer to Jesus, it’s the Spirit which is working inside us.”

“The Holy Spirit which introduced us to Jesus,” continued Pope Francis, “is the same one who urges us to make Him known to others, not so much through words, but through living witness.”

“It is good to ask the Holy Spirit to come into our heart, to give witness to Jesus; tell Him: Lord, may I not stray from Jesus.  Teach me what Jesus taught.  Help me remember what Jesus said and did and also, help me to give witness to these things. So that worldliness, the easy things, the things that really come from the father of lies, from the prince of this world, sin, do not lead me away from giving witness.”

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- For peace in the family, community and nation, people need to recognize their faults and ask forgiveness, Pope Francis told thousands of pilgrims, including hundreds of soldiers, sailors and police officers from around the world.

"In your families, in the various areas where you work, be instruments of reconciliation, builders of bridges and sowers of peace," the pope told the police and military attending his Year of Mercy audience April 30 in St. Peter's Square.

Most of the military and police participating in the special Holy Year pilgrimage were from Italy, but in his remarks to English-speakers, the pope also greeted uniformed representatives from the United States, Canada, Kenya, South Korea and the Philippines as well.

Pope Francis urged members of police forces and military not to give into discouragement even when war and violence seem to "harden hearts" and increase hatred. "Continue your faith journey and open your hearts to God, the merciful father, who never tires of forgiving us. In the face of the challenges each day brings, let shine your Christian hope, which is the certainty of the victory of love over hatred and peace over war."

In his main audience talk, the pope told pilgrims that people often act as if God moves away from them when they sin, but in fact it is the sinner who is moving away from God. "He, seeing us in danger, comes looking for us even more," the pope said.

The Year of Mercy, Pope Francis explained, is a time for people to turn back to God, knowing that he is always ready to forgive.

As he does frequently, the pope pleaded with priests to be welcoming and patient in confession, recognizing just how hard it is for many people to face their sins and acknowledge their need for forgiveness.

"May no one stay far from God because of obstacles placed in their path by men," the pope said. "I'm underlining this -- it goes for confessors, too. Please, do not place obstacles before those who want to reconcile with God. The confessor must be a father!"

Pope Francis told the crowd at the audience that once they experience reconciliation with God, they should look around them and see where else they need reconciliation, particularly if there are tensions within their families.

"This year is the year of reconciliation with God and among us," he said.

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NEW YORK (CNS) -- Jesuit Father Daniel Berrigan, an early critic of U.S. military intervention in Vietnam who for years challenged the country's reliance on military might, died April 30. He was 94.

The author of several books of poetry and one of the first Catholic priests to receive a federal sentence for peace activism, Father Berrigan protested government policies in word and in deeds, which garnered several stays in jail and in federal prison.

Father Berrigan died in the company of family. In a statement issued shortly after the priest's death, the family said, "It was a sacrament to be with Dan and feel his spirit move out of his body and into each of us and in the world."

"Dan taught us that every person is a miracle, every person has a story, every person is worthy of respect," the statement said. "And we are so aware of all he did and all he was and all he created in almost 95 years of life lived with enthusiasm, commitment, seriousness and almost holy humor."

The "heavy burden" of peacemaking will continue among many people, the family added, saying, "We can all move forward Dan Berrigan's work for humanity."

A funeral Mass was planned for May 6 at St. Francis Xavier Church in New York. Family members and others were to gather prior to the Mass for a peace witness followed by a march to the church.

A poet whose works inspired people reflect and act on behalf of justice and peace, Father Berrigan began speaking against U.S. military involvement in February 1965 at a rally in a Protestant church in New York City.

"To men of conscience, such works cry out to heaven for redress. They also sow into man's future a poison which the unborn will be condemned to breathe -- hatreds, divisions, world poverty, hopelessness. In such an atmosphere, the world comes ever closer to the actuality of hell," Father Berrigan told the crowd.

He told various groups and retreats he led over the years that Catholics are called to live a life of nonviolence as expressed in the Gospel and to protest injustices when they are encountered.

Father Berrigan, with others, gave birth to the Plowshares movement to oppose nuclear weapons. On Sept.9, 1980, Father Berrigan, his brother Philip, and six other demonstrators were arrested after entering the General Electric missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and battering intercontinental ballistic missile nose cones with hammers and pouring blood over classified defense plans.

Calling themselves the "Plowshares Eight" from the biblical passage, "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares," the eight defendants were tried in the Montgomery County Common Pleas court, where the presiding judge rejected the use of international law theories of justification for an illegal act. They were found guilty of burglary, criminal mischief and criminal conspiracy and sentenced in July 1981. The Berrigan brothers, Oblate Father Carl Kabat and Baltimore lawyer John Schuchardt received the stiffest sentences, three to 10 years in prison.

The protest was the second major action for which he was arrested. On May 17, 1968, Father Berrigan and eight others entered the Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland, a Baltimore suburb, removed 378 files and burned them in an adjacent parking lot with what they called "homemade napalm."

The "Catonsville Nine," as they called themselves, were tried for conspiracy and destruction of government property in U.S. District Court in Baltimore in October 1968. Father Berrigan testified that he participated in the burning because he had come to realize that "one simply cannot announce the Gospel from his pedestal ... when he was not down there sharing the risks and burdens and the anguish of his students."

While the presiding judge told the defendants he was moved by their views and was anxious to terminate the war. "But people can't take the law into their own hands," he said before finding the defendants guilty. They were given sentences ranging from two to three and a half years in jail. Sentenced to three years, Father Berrigan was ordered to surrender to federal authorities and begin serving his sentence on April 10, 1970. Instead, he went underground, evading federal agents for four months.

The Jesuit surfaced occasionally during those months. In addition to a handful of public appearances at churches and schools, he published articles in several magazines.

FBI agents eventually arrested Father Berrigan on Block Island in Long Island Sound and he was sent to the federal penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut. In January 1972, the Federal Parole Board granted Father Berrigan parole for "reasons of health" and he left prison Feb.24.

Father Berrigan's views at times led him into conflict with other opponents of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and even raised the ire of some leaders in the Catholic Church.

Daniel Berrigan was born in Virginia, Minnesota, May 9, 1921, the fifth of six sons of Thomas Berrigan, a second?generation Irish?American who was working there as a railroad engineer, and Frieda (Fromhart) Berrigan, who was of German descent. Fired for militant Socialist Party activity, the father moved the family to his birthplace, Syracuse, New York, where they lived on a 10?acre farm.

Because he was frail and had weak ankles, Daniel was assigned to do household chores while his brothers tilled the soil under the supervision of their father. Mrs. Berrigan was a devout, generous woman, always ready to feed and house the needy. "From the age of 6, Daniel was obsessed by the suffering in the world," she later recalled.

Attracted to the priesthood from his earliest years, he sent inquiries to religious orders when he was a senior in high school. He finally applied to the Jesuits, because their response was the lowest?keyed of those he received. In 1939, he began the Jesuit training program.

After his novitiate, he studied philosophy at Woodstock College in Maryland, taught French, English and Latin for four years at St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, New Jersey, studied theology for three years at Weston College in Massachusetts, and was ordained on June 19, 1952.

In July 1953, Father Berrigan was sent to France for a year of study and ministerial work in a small town near Lyons. In France, he met some worker?priests who gave him, he later said, "a practical vision of the church as she should be."

He said there was a "retardation" of his development when, for two months in 1954, he served as a military chaplain in Germany.

Returning to New York in the fall of 1954, he taught French and theology at Brooklyn Prep and led teams of students working in poverty areas in Brooklyn and Manhattan's Lower East Side.

From 1957 to 1963, he was professor of New Testament studies at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, where he was the most popular and controversial teacher on campus. He worked his students hard and outside of class formed an elite group of followers dedicated to pacifism, civil rights and radical social work.

Older faculty members frowned on "unprofessional" relationship to students and daring liturgical innovations. At the end of the 1962?63 school year, his superiors sent him to Europe for a year. Traveling in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, he found that "Christians under Marxism have returned to their pre?Constantinian situation of being poor, pure and persecuted."

Returning to New York in the fall of 1964, he began involvement in protest against the war in Vietnam. He helped to found the controversial Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam.

In November 1965, the Jesuit superiors sent him to Latin America in what was described as a reporting assignment for Jesuit Missions magazine. His supporters interpreted the assignment as an attempt by the New York Archdiocese to silence him.

In March 1966, Father Berrigan returned to New York and anti?war activities. He was the author of more than 16 books of poetry and essays.

Later in life, his work focused ministering to people with AIDS in New York City. He also visited Zuccotti Park in New York to support the brief Occupy Wall Street movement in 2012.

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