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Life is a constant imbalance, because life is journeying and finding, Pope Francis recently told seminarians during and audience in Paul VI Hall, Rome.
Elaborating, he said life was about finding good things that take people forward, and discovering things that unbalance us.
Asked how to find a balance between the two, Francis suggested it is best to leave finding balance in life to tightrope walkers in the circus.
“The Christian life is a continuous walking, falling down and getting up,” he said.
At the beginning of the audience, Pope Francis said the students had submitted 205 questions and that he would try to get to ten of them.
Topics included the choice of spiritual director, keeping the “smell of the sheep” while studying in Rome and so far away from home, negotiating peace, praying for enemies.
“Spiritual direction is not a clerical charism, it’s a baptismal charism. Priests who do spiritual direction do not have the charism because they are priests, but because they are baptised,” he said.
He urged the seminarians to pray for the Ukrainian attackers.
“Pray for the attackers, because they are victims like you.
“You can’t see the wounds in their souls, but pray, pray that the Lord will convert them and give them the desire for peace to come. This is important.”
Francis also encouraged the young priests and seminarians to use technology and social media.
However, he sounded a warning and urged them to avoid pornography at all costs; technology has put digital pornography within everyone’s reach, he said.
“I am not going to say, ‘Raise your hand if you have had at least one experience of this,’” the pope said. But “it is a vice that so many people have, so many laymen, so many laywomen, and even priests and nuns.
Pope Francis said he was not talking only about “criminal” forms of porn like child pornography, but of “the somewhat ‘normal’ pornography. Dear brothers, be careful of this. The pure heart, the heart that receives Jesus every day, cannot receive this pornographic information.”
Francis said he wanted to raise to matter of pornography because it is a modern problem that many people have; “so many lay men, so many lay women, and even priests and religious sisters.”
“And if from your cell phone you can delete this, delete it, so you won’t have temptation at hand. And if you can’t delete it, protect yourself properly so you don’t have access to this. I tell you, it weakens the soul.”
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