Posts Tagged ‘Compassion’

Pursuing the Common Good

Monday, March 18th, 2024
Common good

The core responsibility of those entrusted to govern is to promote the common good. This doesn’t mean just what is best for most people. It means creating the social, economic and ecological conditions which enable all members of society – according to their capacity – to reach their human fulfilment and to contribute to the Read more

Kai for our bodies, spiritual food for our souls

Monday, March 18th, 2024
spiritual food

It is late summer here we’re picking apples and bottling peaches, watering kawakawa so the leaves float and don’t droop, and harvesting lemon verbena. We’re flicking mosquitoes at dusk so they won’t bite and listening to noisy cicadas and hearty piwakawaka and spotting a ripening fig before a blackbird pecks at it. The Synod on Read more

Christians should be open to change, says pope

Thursday, August 24th, 2023
Christians

Important characteristics for Christians include being open to change while firm in faith, says Pope Francis. But that is not the same as being rigid and unwilling to bend out of compassion for another. Speaking to a crowd in St Peter’s Square before reciting the Angelus on Sunday, he said God is love and “the Read more

Look past mistakes and understand what we can become

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022
See each other with compassion

God always sees people’s potential, looking past mistakes and understanding what they can become, says Pope Francis. He told people gathered for the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on Sunday that Jesus always looks at us with love. If you feel your are “not up to the challenges of life and, even less, of the Read more

What is a welcoming church?

Thursday, September 29th, 2022

Last Sunday at Mass, the Parish Priest, a sensible, experienced man, mentioned that next week we’d have First Communion, and increased numbers of people were expected at Mass. Then he smiled and said: ‘We probably won’t see them again the following week, but that’s OK.’ I was pleased to hear that. It is of the Read more

Faith involves identifying with suffering

Monday, September 20th, 2021
Faith involves identifying with suffering

On his last day in Slovakia Pope Francis told 60,000 mostly masked faithful that faith involves identifying with suffering. He encouraged Slovak Catholics to open their hearts to “a faith that becomes compassion” that “identifies with those who are hurting, suffering and forced to bear heavy crosses.” It is “a faith that does not remain Read more

The beginning of the end of the Francis papacy

Thursday, July 15th, 2021
pope francis papacy

Pope Francis seems to be recovering nicely from his July 4 surgery, when the 84-year-old pontiff underwent a three-hour procedure for diverticular stenosis. But even with the best prognosis, age is catching up to Francis. Barring a miracle, he will only be expected to continue as pope for five or six years. We may look Read more

Caritas’ solidarity walking campaign makes strides

Thursday, June 17th, 2021
Caritas Interationalis Share the Journey

In four years participants in a Caritas campaign have logged about 600,000km in symbolic solidarity walks with migrants and refugees. The global “Share the Journey” campaign aims to build “bridges of hope between islands separated by fear,” says Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis. Although the campaign has formally ended, its message continues. Read more

We are not voting on law about assisted death but on a dangerous law

Monday, October 12th, 2020
Assisted death

I am not writing to tell you how to vote in the binding referendum on the End of Life Choice Act, but I hope I can be of some help so you are better informed about the Act. Firstly, though, I want to help you think about the concepts of justice, love, compassion, mercy and Read more

NZ must not let fear stand in the way of kindness

Thursday, July 23rd, 2020
fear

In the past two weeks, a former refugee family stepped into one of our churches. They were days away from the end of their short-term lease and had nowhere to go. The rental market in Wellington was so tough, they said, in this season. Did we have anywhere they could stay? Even if it just Read more