POPE FRANCIS

We have to learn to live in a church that exists in the tension between harmony and disorder provoked by the Holy Spirit. If you ask me which book of theology can best help you understand this, it would be the Acts of the Apostles. There you will see how the Holy Spirit deinstitutionalizes what is no longer of use, and institutionalizes the future of the church. That is the church that needs to come out of the crisis. (From an interview in last week’s Commonweal magazine) Today, let us ask the Lord for the grace of faithfulness, to thank him when he gives us security, but to never think that they are ‘my’ securities. Ask for the grace of being faithful even in front of the tomb, in front of the collapse of so many illusions. (From last Tuesday’s Mass) ———————————————————————— The coronavirus is not some form of divine punishment; but a tragic event that, like all suffering in one's life, is used by God to awaken humanity. The coronavirus pandemic has abruptly roused us from the greatest danger individuals and humanity have always been susceptible to: the delusion of omnipotence. It took merely the smallest and most formless element of nature, a virus, to remind us that we are mortal, that military power and technology are not sufficient to save us. Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, during Good Friday service.