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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis is asking us to live this Lenten period as a favourable time for conversion during the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.

In his message for Lent entitled “I desire mercy and not sacrifice. The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee” the Pope reiterates the importance of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy and condemns the proud, the powerful and the wealthy who refuse to open the doors of their hearts to God and to the poor.
  
Please find below the full text of Pope Francis’ message for Lent:
 
“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13).
The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee

1. Mary, the image of a Church which evangelizes because she is evangelized

In the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, I asked that “the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 17).  By calling for an attentive listening to the word of God and encouraging the initiative “24 Hours for the Lord”, I sought to stress the primacy of prayerful listening to God’s word, especially his prophetic word.  The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand.  For this reason, during the season of Lent I will send out Missionaries of Mercy as a concrete sign to everyone of God’s closeness and forgiveness. 

After receiving the Good News told to her by the Archangel Gabriel, Mary, in her Magnificat, prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her.  The Virgin of Nazareth, betrothed to Joseph, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church which evangelizes, for she was, and continues to be, evangelized by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful.  In the prophetic tradition, mercy is strictly related – even on the etymological level – to the maternal womb (rahamim) and to a generous, faithful and compassionate goodness (hesed) shown within marriage and family relationships. 

2. God’s covenant with humanity: a history of mercy

The mystery of divine mercy is revealed in the history of the covenant between God and his people Israel.  God shows himself ever rich in mercy, ever ready to treat his people with deep tenderness and compassion, especially at those tragic moments when infidelity ruptures the bond of the covenant, which then needs to be ratified more firmly in justice and truth.  Here is a true love story, in which God plays the role of the betrayed father and husband, while Israel plays the unfaithful child and bride.  These domestic images – as in the case of Hosea (cf. Hos 1-2) – show to what extent God wishes to bind himself to his people.

This love story culminates in the incarnation of God’s Son.  In Christ, the Father pours forth his boundless mercy even to making him “mercy incarnate” (Misericordiae Vultus, 8).  As a man, Jesus of Nazareth is a true son of Israel; he embodies that perfect hearing required of every Jew by the Shema, which today too is the heart of God’s covenant with Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt 6:4-5).  As the Son of God, he is the Bridegroom who does everything to win over the love of his bride, to whom he is bound by an unconditional love which becomes visible in the eternal wedding feast. 

This is the very heart of the apostolic kerygma, in which divine mercy holds a central and fundamental place.  It is “the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead” (Evangelii Gaudium, 36), that first proclamation which “we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment” (ibid., 164).  Mercy “expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert, and believe” (Misericordiae Vultus, 21), thus restoring his relationship with him.  In Jesus crucified, God shows his desire to draw near to sinners, however far they may have strayed from him.   In this way he hopes to soften the hardened heart of his Bride. 

3. The works of mercy 

God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn.  In an ever new miracle, divine mercy shines forth in our lives, inspiring each of us to love our neighbour and to devote ourselves to what the Church’s tradition calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  These works remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them.  On such things will we be judged.  For this reason, I expressed my hope that “the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy; this will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty, and to enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy” (ibid., 15).  For in the poor, the flesh of Christ “becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us” (ibid.).  It is the unprecedented and scandalous mystery of the extension in time of the suffering of the Innocent Lamb, the burning bush of gratuitous love.  Before this love, we can, like Moses, take off our sandals (cf. Ex 3:5), especially when the poor are our brothers or sisters in Christ who are suffering for their faith. 

In the light of this love, which is strong as death (cf. Song 8:6), the real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such.  They consider themselves rich, but they are actually the poorest of the poor.  This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars.  The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow.  It can even reach the point of being blind to Lazarus begging at their doorstep (cf. Lk 16:20-21).  Lazarus, the poor man, is a figure of Christ, who through the poor pleads for our conversion.  As such, he represents the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we may well fail to see.  Such blindness is often accompanied by the proud illusion of our own omnipotence, which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical “you will be like God” (Gen 3:5) which is the root of all sin.  This illusion can likewise take social and political forms, as shown by the totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and, in our own day, by the ideologies of monopolizing thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited.  This illusion can also be seen in the sinful structures linked to a model of false development based on the idolatry of money, which leads to lack of concern for the fate of the poor on the part of wealthier individuals and societies; they close their doors, refusing even to see the poor. 

For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy.  In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness.  The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated.  By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need.  By taking this path, the “proud”, the “powerful” and the “wealthy” spoken of in the Magnificat can also be embraced and undeservedly loved by the crucified Lord who died and rose for them.  This love alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy with the idols of knowledge, power and riches.  Yet the danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is Hell.  The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (Lk 16:29).  Such attentive listening will best prepare us to celebrate the final victory over sin and death of the Bridegroom, now risen, who desires to purify his Betrothed in expectation of his coming. 

Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion!  We ask this through the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, who, encountering the greatness of God’s mercy freely bestowed upon her, was the first to acknowledge her lowliness (cf. Lk 1:48) and to call herself the Lord’s humble servant (cf. Lk 1:38).

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Washington D.C., Jan 26, 2016 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- “Women’s liberation.” “Women’s rights movement.” “War on women.”

For many, the buzzwords surrounding the intersection of feminism and the pro-life movement call to mind a conflict between the two campaigns. However, for many of those involved in the pro-life movement, pro-life and feminist goals are aligned, not opposed.

In popular society many people are “hearing a lot of messaging that that’s false in the order of ‘in order to be pro-woman, you have to be pro- choice',” said Jeannie Mancini, president of the March for Life, to CNA.

“That’s not true, and it’s even damaging.”

To help break down that message, March for Life organizers chose the theme of “Pro-Life and Pro-Woman Go Hand-in-Hand” for the 2016 March for Life. Mancini explained: “We wanted to educate that being pro-life and pro-woman really do fit together like hand and glove.”

“To be pro-woman and pro-life is empowering,” she asserted.

For Aimee Murphy, the defense of all human life – including the unborn – is a natural outgrowth of the beliefs she holds not only as a Catholic, but as a feminist as well.

“Abortion as an act of violence against preborn human beings is contrary to equality, non-discrimination and non-violence, which are the core foundational tenants of feminism,” she explained to CNA. “As such, we believe abortion is in fact antithetical to the core tenant of feminism, and as a result authentic feminism really does line up with pro-life beliefs.”

Murphy, who is executive director of the “Life Matters Journal”, helped host “Empowering Women Through Life,” a gathering held before the March for Life to discuss both women’s empowerment and the defense of all life. The women who attended the feminist rally, Murphy said, continue the feminist traditions and beliefs started by early suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who themselves opposed abortion. “So many of our attendees are standing up and reclaiming this title of ‘feminist',” she said.

Outside the pro-life movement, however, these non-violent and egalitarian ideals of feminism have been confused with abortion, a practice that directly opposes women’s empowerment, Murphy noted.

“Women really were sold this lie, especially during the 60s and 70s, that in order to be successful, in order to be career-oriented, in order to get a good education, that they needed to have the right to abortion. Honestly, it is an idea rooted in a system of patriarchy.”  

Abortion is a product of patriarchy in that it arises from a culture “in which men’s bodies are seen in the default,” she explained. “Our society is built around the idea that the ideal, the perfect worker, the default worker, can’t have children.”

When this is this case, Murphy continued, “you then start to view pregnancy as a disease, as a problem needed to be fixed.”

“It really is a disempowering idea that women need to be free of children in order to be empowered and to be successful.”

Pro-life feminism and non-violence, Murphy responded, challenges this narrative. “We’re unwilling to take our liberation as part and parcel of the patriarchal idea that we need to kill our children. We, as women, know that we are strong enough and can seek our empowerment without killing our own offspring.”

Murphy sees this pro-life message of empowerment and non-violence “ is not only the future of the pro-life movement but also the future of feminism.”

“Any time that any class of human beings is being oppressed for the sake of another we cannot truly say that we are making progress.” A women’s empowerment that respects life can help make further strides for women, children, and society at large, she said. “We can’t continue to sacrifice our children on the altar of success, whether we are men or women.”

There are also practical means for pro-life activists to help empower and support women to make choices for their future, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told CNA. “In order to end abortion in our country, it’s not going to be done with just rhetoric, it’s going to be done with actions.”

“What better way to show women facing unplanned pregnancy,” she said, “than to actually be there and be another option for her?” One of the practical projects SFLA undertakes is its Pregnant on Campus initiative, which helps to link students facing unplanned pregnancies with resources on campus and in their communities.

The initiative started, Hawkins recalled, after a pro-life student at Fordham lost her housing scholarship “because they wouldn’t allow pregnant students in their dorms.” The pro-life group on campus, she retold, banded together to help the student find housing and financial support options, and “went to bat” with the administration over some of their policies. “She chose life and it was a painful process.”

The experiences at Fordham illuminated a need for work on other campuses around the country, Hawkins said. “We know that there are resources out there: it’s about getting them promoted and getting them out on the campuses.” Students on campus work not only to help fellow students have access to these resources and offer community support such as baby showers and supply drives, but also to work “with the campuses to make changes to policies they currently have that could be discriminating.”

For students facing unplanned pregnancies, Hawkins explained, “not only are we promoting alternatives in the community, but we’re that voice saying ‘we’re going to be your cheerleader.’”

These programs, along with other initiatives to support women both attain their goals and keep their children, are a key part of women’s empowerment, she said.

“Abortion is the opposite of empowerment,” Hawkins stated. “To me, it’s crazy that abortion is considered ‘a feminist issue’ when it’s actually the opposite of feminism. Abortion is telling her ‘you can’t do it all.’”

“Really it’s the pro-life movement that’s saying, ‘we can help you through this.’”

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Vatican City, Jan 26, 2016 / 04:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his 2016 Lenten message, Pope Francis called the faithful to place special emphasis on the spiritual and corporal works of mercy this Lent, taking into account the current Jubilee Year of Mercy.

“God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn,” the Pope wrote in the short document, released Tuesday by the Vatican.

The spiritual and corporal works of mercy, the pontiff said, “remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them.”

“On such things will we be judged,” he said.

The title of this year's message was drawn from the Gospel of Matthew: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,” and has the subtitle: “The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee.”

In the message, signed the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Oct. 4 2015, the Pope said those who are truly poor are the ones who believe themselves to be rich.

“This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars,” he said.

“The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow,” he said.

Pope Francis recounted the parable of the poor man Lazarus who would beg at the door of the Rich Man.

Lazarus represents Christ, the Pope said, and therefore “the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we may well fail to see.”

This blindness “is often accompanied by the proud illusion of our own omnipotence,” he observed.

Such an illusion can take “social and political forms,” he explained, citing as examples the “totalitarian systems of the twentieth century.”

In modern times, this illusion is seen in “the ideologies of monopolizing thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to raw material to be exploited.”

The Pope went on to explain how the illusion can link back to the “idolatry of money,” leading to a lack of concern for the poor “on the part of wealthier individuals and societies.”

“They close their doors, refusing even to see the poor,” he said.

“For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy.”

Pope Francis stressed that “the corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated.”

“By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need,” he said.

“This love alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy with the idols of knowledge, power and riches.”

The Pope warned against constantly refusing “to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor,” as such consistent refusal on the part on the part of the “proud, rich and powerful” leads to condemnation.

This year's Lent will begin Feb 10 with Ash Wednesday, when the Church will send out “Missionaries of Mercy” – priests with the faculties to pardon sins in cases otherwise reserved for the Holy See – as part of the Jubilee Year.

In the opening section of the message, Pope Francis centered his reflection on Mary as the image of the Church's evangelization, “because she is evangelized.

The Pope began by reiterating the call for mercy to be celebrated and experienced in a particular way this Lent, citing the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

“The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand,” he said.

After receiving the “Good News” from the angel Gabriel, Mary proclaims the Magnificat in which she “prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her,” the Pope recounts.

He describes Mary as the “perfect icon of the Church which evangelizes, for she was, and continues to be, evangelized by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful.”

Pope Francis then reflected on the history of mercy as seen in the covenant between God and the people of Israel.

“God shows himself ever rich in mercy, ever ready to treat his people with deep tenderness and compassion, especially at those tragic moments when infidelity ruptures the bond of the covenant, which then needs to be ratified more firmly in justice and truth,” he said.

“Here is a true love story, in which God plays the role of the betrayed father and husband, while Israel plays the unfaithful child and bride.”

“This love story culminates in the incarnation of God's Son,” who the Father has made “mercy incarnate,” the Pope said, citing the Jubilee Bull of Induction.

“As the Son of God, he is the Bridegroom who does everything to win over the love of his bride, to whom he is bound by an unconditional love which becomes visible in the eternal wedding feast.”

Pope Francis reflected how it is through mercy that God restores his relationship with the sinner.

“In Jesus crucified, God shows his desire to draw near to sinners, however far they may have strayed from him. In this way he hopes to soften the hardened heart of his Bride.”
Pope Francis concluded the message by calling on Mary's intercession during the upcoming Season of Lent.

“Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion!”

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Vatican City, Jan 26, 2016 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig, a young priest with Czech roots serving in Germany and Austria, was arrested by the Nazis on April 21, 1941.

His crime? Preaching against the Third Reich from his pulpit, particularly against their treatment of the Jewish people. He encouraged his congregation to be faithful to God and to resist the lies of the Nazi regime.

As punishment, Fr. Unzeitig was sent to what has been called the “largest monastery in the world”: Dachau concentration camp, which became renowned for the number of ministers and priests within its walls.

The camp housed some 2,700 clergy, roughly 95 percent of whom were Catholic priests from Poland, making it one of the largest residences for priests in the history of the Church – hence the name.

Father Unzeitig was just 30 years old, and two years ordained, when he was sent to Dachau. Born in Greifendorf, in what is now the Czech Republic, in 1911, Fr. Unzeitig joined the seminary at the age of 18 and became a priest for the Mariannhill Mission Society, whose motto is: “If no one else will go: I will go!”

While imprisoned at the camp, Father studied Russian in order to be able to help the influx of prisoners from Eastern Europe, and had a reputation at the camp as a holy man.

Treatment of the priests and ministers at Dachau was unpredictable – sometimes they were allowed to worship, at others they were severely treated. On one particular Good Friday, dozens of priests were selected for torture to mark the occasion.

For several years, Fr. Unzeitig was able to remain in relatively stable health despite the poor treatment he received. However, when a wave of the often-fatal typhoid fever swept through the camp in 1945, he and 19 other priests volunteered to do what no one else wanted to – care for the sick and dying in the typhoid barracks, an almost-certain death sentence in and of itself. He and his companions spent their days bathing and caring for the sick, praying with them and offering last rites.

Despite his bleak circumstances, Fr. Unzeitig found his hope and joy in his faith, as evidenced in letters to his sister from the camp:

“Whatever we do, whatever we want, is surely simply the grace that carries us and guides us. God’s almighty grace helps us overcome obstacles … love doubles our strength, makes us inventive, makes us feel content and inwardly free. If people would only realize what God has in store for those who love him!” he wrote.

In another letter he wrote:

‘Even behind the hardest sacrifices and worst suffering stands God with his Fatherly love, who is satisfied with the good will of his children and gives them and others happiness.’

Eventually, on March 2, 1945, Fr. Unzeitig succumbed to typhoid fever himself, along with all but two of the other priest volunteers. Dachau was liberated by American soldiers just a few weeks later, on April 29.

In recognition of his heroic virtue, Fr. Engelmar Unzeitig was declared venerable by Benedict XVI on July 3, 2009.

On January 21, Pope Francis officially acknowledged Fr. Unzeitig as a martyr, killed in hatred of the faith, which opens the path for his beatification, the next step in becoming a canonized saint.

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 WASHINGTON-Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York called on everyone "concerned about the tragedy of abortion" to recommit to a "vision of life and love, a vision that excludes no one" on January 14. His statement marks the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Cardinal Dolan chairs the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Most Americans oppose a policy allowing legal abortion for virtually any reason - though many still do not realize that this is what the Supreme Court gave us," wrote Cardinal Dolan. "Most want to protect unborn children at later stages of pregnancy, to regulate or limit the practice of abortion, and to stop the use of taxpayer dollars for the destruction of unborn children. Yet many who support important goals of the pro-life movement do not identify as 'pro-life,' a fact which should lead us to examine how we present our pro-life vision to others."

"Even as Americans remain troubled by abortion," wrote Cardinal Dolan, a powerful and well-funded lobby holds "that abortion must be celebrated as a positive good for women and society, and those who cannot in conscience provide it are to be condemned for practicing substandard medicine and waging a 'war on women'." He said this trend was seen recently when President Obama and other Democratic leaders prevented passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act, "a modest measure to provide for effective enforcement" of conscience laws.

"While this is disturbing," said Cardinal Dolan, "it is also an opportunity." Pro-life Americans should reach out to "the great majority of Americans" who are "open to hearing a message of reverence for life." He added that "we who present the pro-life message must always strive to be better messengers. A cause that teaches the inexpressibly great value of each and every human being cannot show disdain or disrespect for any fellow human being." He encouraged Catholics to take part, through prayer and action, in the upcoming "9 Days for Life" campaign, January 16-24. More information on the campaign is available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJwfcefUiU

He also cited the Year of Mercy called by Pope Francis as a time for women and men to find healing through the Church's Project Rachel post-abortion ministry.

The full text of Cardinal Dolan's message is available online.
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Keywords: Roe v. Wade, anniversary, Pro-Life, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, 9 Days for Life, USCCB, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Year of Mercy, Project Rachel, Pope Francis
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