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Reflection by Pope Leo XIV "While never denying that evil exists or acting as if bad things do not happen in this world, the example of Jesus shows us that true forgiveness does not wait for contrition but is offered first as a gift. When we experience wounds and...

21,033 views • 11 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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I just play it on repeat since yesterday: "Hello Pope Leo XIV, I'm Renzo, I'm six years old. I'd like to ask you a few questions." Renzo, a little a boy from the poor neighborhood of Barcelona, stole the show yesterday at St. Augustine's parish, a place where Pope Leo admitted he "feels at home." Renzo in the sweetest way ever asked those questions to the pope: Do you like soccer? When you were little, did you want to be Pope? Why are my mom and dad worried? Why does my dad have so many jobs? Why do bad things happen to some people and not to others? Whose fault is it? Why are there so many people living on the streets? Does no one see them? Does no one help them? How can we help if the world is so big? Does God want there to be poor and rich? Why are there so many lonely grandparents, if they are so important? And one last question ... Must we always forgive? What pope Leo answered the boy was really moving. "Regarding whether I like football, I confess that I play tennis and I enjoy it very much, but I also appreciate football; in fact, during my years as bishop in Peru, I liked to follow how some local teams were doing; and now, as Pope, I have also received football clubs and sports groups," the pope said, adding that "sport is important because it helps us grow up healthy in body and mind." He said that as World Cup unfolds, "many will be watching the matches. Football reminds us of something we must not forget: life is not a race to show off alone, but a path we learn to travel together." "Whoever doesn't know how to pass the ball, even if they have talent, hasn't yet understood the game. And whoever doesn't know how to live with others and for others hasn't yet understood life." Answering whether he wanted to be Pope when he was little, the pope said: "Well, Renzo, I don't think so. I don't think I ever thought about it." "But I can tell you something: from a young age, I felt the desire to dedicate my life to God. I didn't yet know exactly how or where the Lord would lead me. Over time, I discovered that Jesus was calling me to follow him as a priest, and that this path led through the Order of Saint Augustine." "But this isn't just true for me," he said. "Every child is a dream of God. You are too. God desires the happiness of all and wants us, from childhood and throughout our lives, to have a heart like that of children (cf. Mt 18:3): capable of trusting, full of kindness; he wants us to be his friends and not turn away from him. Therefore, more important than asking oneself whether one will be a priest, doctor, teacher, parent, or anything else, is asking oneself whether one wants to be a friend of Jesus. Because friendship with Jesus gives us joy, sets us free, and helps us to see, step by step, the vocation and the path that God has planned for each of us." Answering the point on injustices in the world, Pope Leo told the boy that "through the life of Jesus Christ, God shows us that, although there is suffering, he never abandons any of his children, because he has prepared for us an eternal joy where there will be no more sadness or pain. Let us have confidence, Jesus is with us, he helps us and accompanies us, and gives us strength to go through the difficult moments we may encounter in life." Stressing that grandparents play a crucial role in families, the pope said: "Let us not allow loneliness and abandonment to become normalized in the lives of older adults. That is a very sad thing. Let's have our hearts open to all of them." On forgiveness, he told Renzo and those gathered: "It does not mean forgetting by force, as if nothing had happened. Forgiveness means not letting hatred become the master of our hearts ... our willingness to forgive is a condition for the forgiveness we receive from God." Video: Vatican Media

Paulina Guzik

244,711 views • 1 month ago

The antisemitism that was festering under the surface for decades, has exploded. And for those of us who stand against it, we are not the popular kids. The so called “cool kids” are wearing a keffiyeh, calling for an intifada and demanding a Palestine between the river and the sea even if they can’t tell you which river or which sea. Keffiyeh Karens. That’s the mainstream now. Standing up against jihadism is now the counter-culture. Standing up for western democratic values against terror and extremism: that is now the counter-culture. Using facts and reason and knowing history: that is now the counter-culture. People! WE are the counterculture. And we are doing it. The Jewish people have found our voice because standing up for what we believe in, even when it’s not popular, is part of who we are. Our tiny people haven’t survived for millennia and outlived every empire that tried to destroy us by always being the cool kids. In fact, we almost never are. We know when it’s time to swim against the tide because we know this playbook. We have been here before. And our message to the world is as follows: the hatred that targets is targeting you too. I have a question for you, keffiyeh Karen from campus: where would you prefer to be a woman? in Iran? In Afghanistan? or in Israel? We cannot take the freedoms that we enjoy here in the US in Israel and in the west for granted, and right now even saying just that is swimming against the tide – it is being the counterculture. This is not a war of Israel’s choosing but we cannot avoid it either. They might call us the chosen people: in fact we are the people with no choice. But the entire western world needs to wake up to the fact that it has no choice either: that what is at stake is the survival, not just of the Jewish people, but of Western civilization, democracy and freedom itself. And where we do have a choice is in how we do it: and we choose to speak the truth, even when the truth isn’t popular. To speak up, even when we are shouted down and to be proud even when they tell us we better hide. Thank you so much, am Israel chai

Noa Tishby

349,759 views • 1 year ago

This girl's father tried to kill her mother. A stranger stepped in to shield her, and was killed. The father went to prison, mother turned to drugs. She found Jesus eventually -- through family love and youth retreat -- but struggles to forgive. "And sometimes I look up to heaven and ask God, 'Where were you when I was a little girl?' Holy Father, how can I forgive my father for almost leaving me without a mother? How can I truly be reconciled with God?" Pope Leo said the scope of the question should be broadened: "Should we ask 'where was God'? Or should we ask ourselves about humanity, about how we are sometimes prisoners of evil, resorting to violence against others? How is it that we fail to cultivate love and respect for others’ dignity and freedom? So many crime reports, even today, reflect a toxic climate in family relationships marked by abuse and oppression and, in particular, by violence against women, which unfortunately often leads to femicide." "We cannot attribute to God what has been entrusted to our responsibility; we cannot imagine that God, from on high, will automatically respond to our needs or miraculously prevent evil from happening." "He has given us his own Spirit, precisely so that love may be the key to all our human relationships. If violence exists, if selfishness prevails, if even love among family members turns into hatred, we must question the dynamics of our society, the culture of individualism and the temptation of violence — but not God." On forgiveness, he said: "Above all, we must seek forgiveness from the Lord. We must continually ask the Lord — perhaps for our entire lives — to expand the space of love within us, precisely where we have been wounded, that he can help us reconcile with ourselves and with that part of our past that has been marked by suffering, so that he may slowly transform resentment into mercy and compassion." "This is a long journey," the pope said, "and a process that requires great patience. It is an effort we must make, both on a personal level and through other means of support and inner reconciliation." "We must not lose heart: we move forward in small steps toward forgiveness. Reconciliation with the past is gradual. Above all, we must not think that forgiveness always and in every case means returning to the previous situation or having a close relationship with those who have hurt us, especially when there was violence. We can maintain a good disposition of heart toward the person, reject all forms of hatred or revenge, strive to repair the relationship as much as possible and perhaps pray for him or her. This helps us to enter more and more into the dynamic of forgiveness and to be reconciled with God and with others." Video: Vatican Media

Paulina Guzik

97,559 views • 1 month ago

Carmina is a high school teacher. Testifying about her depression she told Pope Leo, with her voice breaking, that she "struggled to overcome this illness in silence for years." "I am here," she said, because "God gave me a second chance," when she wanted to give up. "But there are many others who continue to face this darkness. That is why I ask you with all my heart: Where can we see God when the darkness is absolute and we cannot take it anymore?" Pope Leo said he was "moved" that she was "able to speak about it, that you are here among us and that you have found the strength to embrace this second chance that the Lord has given you." "Through contact with Jesus, even those who feel lost regain confidence in life; healed of their illness, they can rise to live again." Speaking about depression, Pope Leo said: "there is something deeply wrong with a certain notion of progress that subjects people to pressures, expectations and tensions that compromise healthy balances. For this reason, we need a healthcare system that prioritizes this invisible and widespread malaise, which also affects young people." "There are moments of darkness and suffering that our society silences," Pope Leo said, because "certain cultural norms demand that we always be victorious and perfect, and so our limitations, fragility and pain must be eliminated, confined to the deafening silence of loneliness or even shame." And in these moments, we may instinctively think that "God has abandoned us as well," he admitted. "However, the cross of Jesus tells us that God does not abandon us, that he is at our side, crucified with us in moments of pain and extreme loneliness, that he gathers not only our tears but also the cry of our suffering that others do not hear." "When God seems absent, we must entrust to him once again the burdens we carry in our hearts, even crying out to him, even protesting like Job, confident that in some way he is present and near even when he appears to be silent. But I believe we cannot do this alone. In times of pain, at least as much as possible, we must open ourselves to someone who can help us utter a simple prayer, who can accompany us with discretion without rushing to explain that pain, who can take us by the hand and lead us out of that cry." Video: Vatican Media

Paulina Guzik

239,540 views • 1 month ago