Vatican City, Jan 25, 2017 / 06:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis said having total faith and trust in God means recognizing that he always knows and wants what is best for us, even if it’s hard to accept because it doesn’t align with our own plans.
Wednesday, Pope Francis talked about what it means to have total faith and trust in God, acknowledging that he knows what is best, and always wants what is best for us, even if it is often difficult to accept.
“Trusting in God means to enter into his designs without demanding anything, even accepting that his salvation and his help should come to us in a different way from our expectations,” he said Jan. 25.
The Pope’s catechesis for the general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall centered on the story of Judith in the Old Testament, a woman who was “a great heroine,” he said, and an excellent example of the virtues of faith, hope and trust.
In the story, Nebuchadnezzar's army, under the leadership of General Holofernes, is laying siege to a city in Judea, cutting off the water supply and thus “sapping the resistance of the population,” the Pope said.
“The situation is dramatic,” to the point that the people in the town are giving up, wanting to surrender to the enemy, he said. Faced with such despair, a leader of the people suggests that they wait only five more days. If God has not saved them by then, they will surrender.
But then Judith comes onto the scene, “a woman of great beauty and wisdom, she speaks to the people with the language of faith,” Francis said.
“You want to test the Lord Almighty,” the Pope said, quoting the words of Judith, who cautioned the people not to “provoke the wrath of the Lord, our God.” The Lord, she said, “has full power to defend us in the days he wants or even to destroy us by our enemies.”
Referencing the passage, Pope Francis told pilgrims that “we never put conditions on God and give up...instead hope conquers our fears.”
“He is a Father, he can save us,” he said. In this way, “a woman full of faith and courage gives new strength to his people in mortal danger and leads them on the path of hope, revealing this also to us.”
Judith shows us the path to trust, to “wait in peace, prayer and obedience,” Francis said, noting that this sort of resignation is not easy. We must do everything in our power, but “always remaining in the furrow of the Lord’s will.”
In off-the-cuff comments, the Pope said Judith was brave to trust in God as she did, adding that “this is my opinion: women are more courageous than men.”
We can and should ask the Lord for life, health, happiness, he said, but always “in the awareness that God is able to bring life even from death” and that we can experience “peace even in disease, serenity even in solitude, (and) bliss even in tears.”
“We are not the ones who can teach God what to do, what we need,” he said. “He knows better than we do, and we have to trust, because his ways and his thoughts are different from ours.”
Article Archive
Trusting in God means letting go of what we want, Pope says
Related Articles • More Articles
Pope Francis waves while traveling by boat in Venice, Italy, for a meeting with young people at the Basilica della Madonna della Salute on April 28, 2024. Earlier in the day he met with inmates at a women's prison. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).Pope Francis opened his one-day visit to Venice on Sunday morning with a meeting with female inmates where he reaffirmed the importance of fraternity and human dignity, noting that prison can be a place of new beginnings. "A stay in prison can mark the beginning of something new, through the rediscovery of the unsuspected beauty in us and in others, as symbolized by the artistic event you are hosting and the project to which you actively contribute," the pope said to the female inmates gathered in the intimate courtyard of the Women's Prison on the Island of Giudecca. Pope Francis left the Vatican by helicopter at approximately 6:30 in the mo...
Pope Francis prays in front of the tomb of St. Mark the Evangelist inside St. Mark's Basilica in Venice on April 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNARome Newsroom, Apr 28, 2024 / 09:35 am (CNA).Pope Francis had a full slate of events Sunday during his day trip to Venice, a trip that tied together a message of unity and fraternity with the artistic patrimony of a city that has been a privileged place of encounter across the centuries. "Faith in Jesus, the bond with him, does not imprison our freedom. On the contrary, it opens us to receive the sap of God's love, which multiplies our joy, takes care of us like a skilled vintner, and brings forth shoots even when the soil of our life becomes arid," the pope said to over 10,000 pilgrims gathered in St. Mark's Square. Framing his homily during the Mass on the theme of unity, one of the central points articulated throughout several audiences spread across the morning, Pope Francis reminded Christians: "Remaining ...
Prayer house at San Simeone, Italy, September 2012. / Credit: Courtesy of Ricostruttori nella preghieraRome, Italy, Apr 28, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across Italy there are houses of prayer run by the Ricostruttori (Reconstructors) community, a Catholic movement dedicated to people who are far from the Church but attracted to spirituality, particularly Eastern meditation and Buddhist practices. The Reconstructors was founded in 1978 by Jesuit Father Gian Vittorio Cappelletto. "During the postconciliar period, the Church was faced with the need for new forms of evangelization and apostolate, to reach out to people who were drifting away," Don Roberto Rondanina, priest and superior of the Ricostruttori, explained to CNA. "It was a time when Eastern meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age ... were beginning to spread in Europe." "Father Cappelletto, who lived in Turin, sought to understand the meaning of this 'flight to the East' and felt the need to find new forms of sp...