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(Vatican Radio) In his Angelus address on Sunday, Pope Francis looked to the day's Gospel, which recounts how Jesus preached in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth. The Lord read a passage from the Prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor." Jesus Himself fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "Today," He said, "this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

This, said Pope Francis, is the mission of Jesus, and also the mission of the Church: to preach the Good News to the poor. Although the Gospel is addressed to everyone, he explained, Jesus nonetheless privileges those "who are farthest away, the suffering, the sick, those who are discarded by society." The poor, he concluded, "are at the centre of the Gospel."

Below, please find Vatican Radio's translation of Pope Francis' remarks at the Sunday Angelus: 

Dear brothers and sisters, good day!

In the Gospel of today, Luke the evangelist, before presenting the programmatic discourse of Jesus at Nazareth, briefly summarizes the work of evangelization. It is a work that He accomplishes with the power of the Holy Spirit: His word is original, because it reveals the sense of the Scripture; it is an authoritative word, because He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey (cf. Mk 1:27). Jesus is different from the teachers of His time. For example, Jesus didn’t open a school for the study of the Law, but went about everywhere to preach and teach: in the synagogues, in the streets, in the houses. Jesus also differs from John the Baptist, who proclaims the imminent judgement of God, while Jesus proclaims the forgiveness of God.

And now we enter, we imagine, into the synagogue of Nazareth, the village where Jesus lived until He was about thirty years old. What happened there is an important event, which delineates the mission of Jesus. He stood up to read the Holy Scripture. He opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and takes the passage where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” Then, after a moment of silence full of expectation on the part of everyone, He says, to general amazement: “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

To evangelize the poor: This is the mission of Jesus, according to what He Himself says; this is also the mission of the Church, and of every person baptized in the Church. To be Christian and to be a missionary is the same thing. To proclaim the Gospel, with words, and, even before that, with one’s life, is the principle end of the Christian community and of each of its members.

It is known that Jesus addresses the Good News to everyone, without excluding anyone; and yet, He privileges those who are furthest away, the suffering, the sick, those discarded by society.

But let us ask ourselves a question. What does it mean to evangelize the poor? It means above all being close to them, having the joy of serving them, freeing them from oppression, and all this in the name of and with the Spirit of Christ, because He is the Gospel of God, He is the Mercy of God, He is the liberation of God. It is He Who was made poor in order to enrich us with His poverty. The text of Isaiah, reinforced by some small adaptations introduced by Jesus, indicates that the messianic proclamation of the Kingdom of God that has come amongst us is addressed in a preferential way to the marginalized, to prisoners, to the oppressed.

Probably in the time of Jesus these people were not at the centre of the community of faith. And we can ask ourselves: today, in our parish communities, in the associations, in the movements, are we faithful to the program of Christ? Is the evangelization of the poor, bringing to them the good news, the priority? Be attentive: this isn’t about giving social assistance, much less about political activity. It has to do with the strength of the Gospel of God, Who converts hearts, heals the wounded, transforms human and social relationships according to the logic of love. The poor, in fact, are at the heart of centre of the Gospel.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of evangelizers, help us to feel strongly the hunger and thirst for the Gospel that exists in the world, especially in the heart and the flesh of the poor – and obtain for each and every one of us, the whole Christian community, to bear concrete witness to the mercy that Christ has given to us. 

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London, England, Jan 24, 2016 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Helping young Catholics engage their culture on matters of human dignity and sexuality – based on the writings of St. John Paul II – was the aim of a recent symposium held in the heart of London.

“Young people are hungry for knowledge about the true meaning of personal love and human sexuality,” said conference speaker Robert McNamara.

Over the course of the Jan 13-17 symposium, McNamara, an adjunct professor of philosophy at Steubenville University, led a series of lectures on human dignity and sexuality, based primarily on St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility.

“People, both young and old, are most interested in discovering a path for life, in discovering the meaning of their being and life, and in so doing finding that which enables them to live full and meaningful lives,” McNamara told CNA.

“Ultimately, we are all interested in discovering love. And so too, we are all hungry to better understand the meaning of personal love and, with it, the meaning of human sexuality. In this way we can more easily discern how to discover love and choose love.”

Theology of the Body is the corpus of 129 General Audience addresses delivered by St. John Paul II from 1979 to 1984, which centered on the human person and human sexuality. Likewise addressing the theme of marriage and sexuality, “Love and Responsibility,” first published in 1960, years before his election to the papacy, examines the subject from a more academic perspective.

The five-day gathering in London of presentations and workshops was opened by speaker Christopher West delivering the 2016 Theology of the Body Lecture – an annual initiative since 2004 organized by Westminster Director for marriage and family life, Edmund Adamus. Addressing interconnected themes of love, sex and mercy, West garnished the academic and practical principles of Theology of the Body with personal testimony, appreciated by the 300 plus audience.

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, located in the upscale Soho district of London, hosted the event under the guidance of its pastor, Fr. Alexander Sherbrooke.

“People who come into an area like this, essentially they are looking for love,” said Fr. Sherbrooke in an interview with CNA. “That search for love is often misdirected and misappropriated, but, still they’re searching for love.”

Speaking in the context of marriage and human sexuality, Fr. Sherbrooke discussed the role of beauty in evangelization, and its ability to bring order to the lives of people living in a society marked by permissiveness.

“In society, you can do everything, you can be everything, there are no rules to anything,” he said. “We live in a very formless, fluid world.”

However, “man is not, in fact, well-structured for that,” Fr. Sherbrooke said. “He needs his form. He needs his structure. He needs to have his patterns of existence.”

People are “made for love, to receive love, and to give love,” he continued, “but most people have had no experience of the beauty of married life, of a family, and of all the things that we hold dear.”

“That is part of God’s beauty. That is a beauty in itself.”

Also incorporated into the symposium were opportunities for prayer and evangelization. These included daily Mass and Adoration, a healing service led by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and an evening of Nightfever.

“We need to hear what people are saying,” Fr. Sherbrooke said, explaining the reason for incorporating evangelization into this conference. “We need to hear how people are living their lives, however unsettling it may be for us.

“We can't just talk amongst ourselves,” he stressed, “because a). we're not being true to the Gospel, and b). we’re not trusting in the Holy Spirit.”

The Symposium also included a series of workshops aimed at showing how Theology of the Body can be practically applied to everyday life.

Several of the workshops dealt with issues related to fertility, and how attempts to artificially control it – such as through IVF or contraception – can have serious implications for women in terms of health and self-worth.

Theology of the Body helps to “answer to the many reproductive questions that we have today,” said Ira Winter, manager of the Life Fertility Care clinic in the UK, which offers Natural Procreative (NaPro) technology to treat couples struggling with infertility.

“God is the author of all new life,” she said. “Therefore, we need to involve him when we are discerning how we live this out.”

NaPro Technology is a method of addressing infertility by diagnosing and treating underlying problems. Unlike IVF, which relies on invasive procedures, NaPro takes a holistic approach in addressing the core causes of infertility.

“NaPro technology is really going back to trying to find out what is the underlying cause of problems, and trying to come up with solutions that are not eradicating the woman’s cycle, but actually leading to some healing,” Winter explained.

“In the end couples will turn away from IVF when they understand God placed the co-creative gift right at the heart of their marital communion,” she said.

“Theology of the Body helps couples understand why this gift is simply too precious to abdicate to a laboratory,” Winter said, adding that it “excites couples as to the value of their marriage.”

Another theme addressed during the workshop sessions regarded the implications of so-called “gender theory.”

A speaker from the Warsaw-based Center for the Thought of John Paul II illustrated the characteristics and dangers of gender ideology with reference to the suffering endured by individuals affected by gender identity disorder and gender dysphoria.

In light of demands for “gender-affirming” treatments and procedures that aim to override an individual's biological sex, the speaker encouraged participants to affirm reality and to reflect on the importance and meaning of sexual difference and of the human body as such.

The talking points of the workshop were based on fragments of Benedict XVI's 2012 Christmas address to the Roman Curia, and a 2004 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church, signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Drawing on John Paul II's reflections on woundedness and Redemption and on parts from Pope Francis' newest book “The Name of God is Mercy,” participants were invited to respond with mercy to those affected.

One of the volunteers at the conference, London lawyer Stephanie Tang, told CNA it was “a complete healing process” to encounter Theology of the Body as a recent convert to Catholicism from a family of Buddhists.

“One of the greatest difficulties, I would say, is shedding the schema with which I interpreted the world, and replacing it from the inside, from the heart, with Catholic theology, and Jesus' way of life,” Tang said.

She recounted how one of the lectures by McNamara on “spousal love” and complete self-gift caused her to have a “visceral” reaction.

“It actually flew in the face of everything that my parents had taught me,” Tang explained. “My mom had always said: reserve a little bit for yourself; if he’s not nice to you, take a bit of your love back; make sure you’ve got separate bank accounts; make sure you’re alright if he leaves you.”

“Being a lawyer, we’re all about risk minimization,” she said. “So, to learn that God wanted us to love completely, expose all your vulnerabilities – that was very hard for me.”

The principles learned at the conference not only show it is possible to “live right by God,” she said, but “the responsibility we have to spread the truth about our own bodies that all of us innately know.”

Margaret Jey-Sharwan, who traveled from Nigeria to attend the event, told CNA how the principles of Theology of the Body could help those in her country discover how to bring unity within their marriages.

“For us in Nigeria, and basically in most African cultures, it’s a man’s world. It’s what the man wants,” she said. “All you need is to have a submissive wife.”

Although this mentality is starting to change, still “you find people who are not happy in their marriages,” she said.

“We don't have high divorce rates in Africa, not as high as the Western world,” yet there are a number of unhappy marriages. Many choose to live through these marriages in order to avoid the stigma of separation, she said.

“If people understood (Theology of the Body) better, if couples understood this better, then they would understand themselves, understand their marriages, understand what is expected of them, it would definitely bring unity in the home.”

Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, issued a message for the symposium, noting its objective being to “nurture deeper reflection on our God given human dignity from the perspective of Pope St. John Paul’s visionary catechesis on sexuality in the context of marriage and family.”

“I pray that everyone involved will be blessed with greater confidence to give witness to the wonderful truth about the human person,” Cardinal Nichols said.

Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.

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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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