Monday, May 19, 2025

Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 14:5-8; Psalm 115:1-4.15-16; John 14:21-26

Before you can obey the Lord’s commandment you must first know what it is. In context, the commandment to be kept is Jesus’s “new commandment” as set forth in the previous chapter of Saint John’s Gospel. This “new commandment,” as we heard in our Gospel yesterday, is that, as His disciples, we love one another as He has loved us.1 Esto es claro, ¿si?

Christ’s love, then, is the standard. The Lord’s standard clearly exceeds my ability, even on my best days and even when it comes to my closest relationships. Hence, I must recognize my need for help to love others as Christ loves me. The help God gives me to love beyond my own capacity is grace.

Too often, I am happy whenever I live a day during which I don’t say, do, or in my heart commit some gross violation of the Lord’s command to love. In other words, a day during which there is no egregious sin of commission. Indeed, we spend a lot of time discussing and agonizing over sins of commission.

As a result, we rarely mention sins of omission- those situations in which I could’ve and should’ve done something good but did not. This is reflected in the Act of Contrition that we pray in confession between confessing our sins and receiving absolution: “In choosing to wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things.”

In saying this prayer, we recognize that our sins, all of them, are failures to love God above all things. In failing to do good, maybe it’s the case I love my comfort and seek to preserve it by not getting involved.

As Pope Francis noted in the wake of a very defective public exposition of the ordo amoris, one that sought let us off the hook far too easily:
The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan,”2 that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception


This is the fundamental imperative of love: to do good and avoid evil. Focusing exclusively on avoiding evil is like playing not lose instead of playing to win. In 1 Corinthians, Saint Paul urges Christians to “Run so as to win.”3

A secret of the spiritual life, of a Spirit-driven life, is that the more you “do good” out selfless motives, the less inclined you are to “do evil.” “Above all,” scripture teaches, “let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.”4

As the Lord intimates, it is not the Holy Spirit’s remit to reveal new things. All that God could reveal is revealed in and through Christ. Jesus Christ is the full revelation, the final word of God to man.

It is the Holy Spirit who seeks to bring us to an ever deeper understanding of the full revelation of God in Christ. He does this by constantly reminding us of “all” Lord has told us. Chief among these is a wholehearted love of God, which results in love of neighbor.

According to the scriptures, my love for God can only be a response to God’s love for me: “In this is love” asserts the inspired author of 1 John, “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”5 Therefore, he continues: “if God so loved us, we also must love one another.”6

Loving as Christ loves is what it means to be holy. Becoming holy, quite literally, consists of nothing else. "God is love."7 This is what makes the true God different from false, pagan gods, like Hermes and Zeus.


1 John 13:34.
2 Pope Francis. Letter of the Holy Father Francis to the Bishops of the United States of America, 10 February 2025; Luke 10:25-37.
3 1 Corinthians 9:24.
4 1 Peter 4:8.
5 1 John 4:10.
6 1 John 4:11.
7 1 John 4:8.16.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Pope Leo XIV on the Pontificate- "loving as Jesus did"



In his homily for his Mass of Inauguration for his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV summed up the Petrine ministry beautifully in one short paragraph:
Peter is thus entrusted with the task of 'loving more' and giving his life for the flock. The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love, because the Church of Rome presides in charity and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did
At least for me, Pope Leo, in addition to being his own man, combines wonderful characteristics of his two predecessors. He has the missionary fervor and deep concern for those on the periphery of Pope Francis. Like Pope Benedict, he speaks clearly and precisely from a deep well of love for our Lord and for His Church. At least in profile, he looks quite a bit like Pope Saint John Paul II.

Love is all you need, but what is love anyway?

Readings: Acts 14:21-27; Psalm 145:8-13; Revelation 21:1-5a; John 13:31-33a.34-35

"Love" is a used and abused word. In English, Latin, and in quite a few other languages, there is one word for love. Hence, this one word does a lot of heavy lifting.

In Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, there are four words for love, each referring to a different kind of love. In Jesus' new commandment- that His disciples love one other as He has loved them- the word is agape. Agape is self-giving, self-sacrificing love. Jesus sets His love for us (collectively and individually) as the standard by which His disciples can be known. Hence, it is a love that requires us to transcend our own limitations.

Elsewhere in the Johaninne corpus this is laid out:
The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth (1 John 3:16-18)
To love like Christ loves is what it means to be holy, nothing else. Literally, holiness means nothing else than loving like Christ loves me (and you, thus us). Yet, it is hard, really hard, to love like Christ loves. It is so hard that to love like Christ loves requires God's grace. Grace is the means by which I am able to overcome my limitations.

"In this is love", pay attention- "not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another (1 John 4:10-11).

Adherence to the Lord's new commandment, which can never amount to stringent rule-keeping but is always a matter of the heart, of what we might call the proper interior disposition, is how the One who sits on the throne makes all things new.

La Jérusalem céleste, extraite de la Tapisserie de l'Apocalypse du Château d'Angers, France.


Salvation history begins in a garden. It culminates, however, in a city, "the holy city, a new Jerusalem" (Revelation 21:2). A city is where people live together. Like a lot of people my age perhaps, when I think of a harmonius city or town, my mind goes to Richard Scary's Busytown. Granted, this is highly sentimental but it gives me a toehold. Perhaps a better and certainly a more theological starting point is Jacques Ellul's The Meaning of the City.

Loving like Christ loves or, stated another way, living out of Christ's for me, is how I am made new. As Saint Paul observed: "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This requires me to experience Christ's love, His tender gaze, His unfailing patience, His limitless mercy. Like most people, I respond to tenderness better than I respond to confrontation.

As it turns out, in the end, The Beatles were right, "All you need is love." It bears asking, à la Howard Jones, "What Is Love?" According to the Lord, the kind of love you need requires your all, requires all of you.

Newness brought about by love, by agape, is a rich vein that runs throughout our uniquely Christian scriptures. It is also why, in the words of Paul and Barnabas taken from Acts, "It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). To love the way Christ loves is suffer like Christ suffers. At the end of the day, this and only this is the cost of discipleship.

I will be the first to admit, I have a long way to go. Frankly, I suck at loving others the way Christ loves me. It's so much that I fail as it is that I often outright refuse to love. I don't only do this frequently but daily, even several times a day.

Friday, May 16, 2025

"Swim out past the breakers..."

When I decided to reinvigorate this little piece of cyber space late last year I could never have predicted all the excitement 2025 would bring. What a year so far! We've experienced the good, the bad, and the very ugly. But in the face of this, there is reason for hope. Solidarity seems to be springing up tace not just the challenges but the crises we are living. As Pope Francis noted earlier this year, while speaking in his beloved basilica of Saint Mary Major, where he was laid to rest, “Today, we are not living an epoch of change so much as an epochal change.”

In my view, the first quarter of the twenty-first century has been an awful epoch, a paradigm has emerged that badly needs to be changed. Maybe the next quarter century will be better, a time when we start asking why to technology, regulating it smartly, and rejecting stifling ideologies. Maybe it's time, to quote the late Joe Strummer, "to take the humanity back to the center of the ring..."



In the same speech cited above, Pope Francis noted: “The situations that we are living today pose new challenges which, at times, are also difficult for us to understand. Our time requires us to live problems as challenges and not as obstacles.” Above all, he reminded us, “The Lord is active and at work in our world.” The seemingly hopelessness of death overcome by unexpected resurrection.

Catholic social teaching, which is built on the pillars of human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, offers a lot in this regard, even for non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-believers. This is why I found the Pope's choice of the name Leo so encouraging.

Speaking of need for change, Fr. Sam Sawyer, S.J., who serves as editor of America magazine, wrote what I think is a great opinion piece for The New York Times yesterday: "Pope Leo XIV May Be a Stern Teacher for American Catholics." I won't rehash Fr Sawyer's short piece. I will just encourage you to read it.

We can all rest easy, Pope Leo is on social media.

With everything going on, I have been "blogging" up a storm. With this, I have posted as many times already as I posted last year. Of course, last year was nearly the end of Καθολικός διάκονος. Hey, it's Easter- Resurrection time!

Καθολικός διάκονος remains for me a labor of love. Writing here is something I want to do, not something I feel I have to do. I re-started in earnest because I was poorer by not doing it. From the beginning, I felt this to be part of my diaconal vocation. It is my prayer that there are others who benefit from what I post, too.

This week's Friday traditio is one of those great '90s grungy kinda ballads" "Santa Monica" by Everclear. Why? In the words of "Bluto" Blutarsky, "Why not?"

Monday, May 12, 2025

Mass of Thanksgiving for the Election of Pope Leo XIV

Readings: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 42:2-3.43:3-4; John 10:1-10

Our Gospel today continues the theme of the Good Shepherd. While this is certainly fitting for Monday after Good Shepherd Sunday, is especially fitting for our celebration of the Mass of Thanksgiving for the election of our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. It is important to bear in mind, as no doubt the Pope does, that there is only one truly Good Shepherd, that is, a shepherd who is good in and of Himself: Jesus Christ.

Hence, all the Church’s shepherds depend on Christ the Good Shepherd to carry out their pastoral ministry. This, of course, recalls Pope Francis’ exhortation to bishops and priests to smell like the sheep entrusted to their care. It is by being among the sheep that you come to smell like them.

Being a confidant and friend of Pope Francis, Pope Leo seems to have taken this to heart. “To be a good shepherd, our new Holy Father insisted, “means to be able to walk side-by-side with the People of God and to live close to them, not to be isolated.”1 Priests are not doctrinal enforcers. Bishops are not managers. Popes are not kings. It was Pope Saint Paul VI who abolished the papal coronation ceremony and who retired the triregnum, the papal crown that indicated that the pope was governor of the world, which is unfitting for the vicar of the King whose kingdom is not of this world.

Pope Leo’s first words to the Church and to the world echo those of the risen Lord to His disciples: La pace sia con tutti voi!- “Peace be with you all!” In this same inaugural address, noting his spiritual heritage as an Augustinian, he quoted Saint Augustine, saying- “With you I am a Christian and for you a bishop.” Then, in his own words said, “In this sense, we can all walk together towards that homeland which God has prepared for us.”2

For those of us who follow these things closely, it was astounding that the Cardinals chose someone from the United States to serve as Roman Pontiff. But that they did. Since the instructions for this Mass both permit and even encourage sharing a biography of the new pope, it seems most fitting to do so.

With his two brothers, Robert Prevost grew up in a Catholic family, where his father served in their parish as a catechist, in the suburbs south of Chicago. Being from the south side, the Holy Father is a White Sox fan, as footage of him watching a 2005 World Series game wearing Sox jersey and jacket and the testimony of his brother demonstrate. I have it on good authority from several friends from Chicago that Catholics there tend to root for the Sox, not the Cubs. But the Pope's mother, who was from the northside, seems cast doubt on that!

Rather than entering seminary after attending minor seminary for high school, the Holy Father, matriculated at Villanova University in Philadelphia. There he studied mathematics and philosophy. After graduation, he taught math and physics to high schoolers. Eventually, he discerned a call to religious life in the Order of Saint Augustine.

Prevost earned his Master of Divinity, which is the seminary degree, from the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago. A good friend of mine, Father J.T. Lane, who now serves as provincial for the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament for the United States, also attended CTU. Because he was the only member of his order in formation at the time, we spent a lot of time at the Augustinian house. He remembers Father Bob, now Pope Leo, as a kind, intelligent, and relatively quiet person.



At age 26, the young Robert Prevost was ordained a priest in Rome by Archbishop Jean Jadot, who has served as Apostolic Delegate to the United States (there was no nuncio until the U.S. formally established diplomatic relations with the Holy See under President Reagan) and who was then serving as President of Secretariat for Non-Christians. He then went on to earn both a licentiate and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

He went back and forth between Chicago and Peru. By all accounts, in both places, the future Pontiff lived simply, even in an austere manner. Eventually, he was elected by his Augustinian brothers to serve as Provincial of the Augustinians in Chicago. He also taught canon law to seminarians both in the U.S. and in Peru. Upon election as their Prior General by Augustinians worldwide, he returned to Rome, where he lived from 2001- 2013.

After briefly returning to Chicago, in 2014 Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo in Peru. In January 2023, Pope Francis called him to Rome as Prefect for the Dicastery of Bishops and created him Cardinal in the Consistory of 30 September 2023. In his address Urbi et Orbi on the day of his election, the only words Pope Leo spoke that were not in Italian (he is now the Bishop of Rome) were these words of greeting, spoken in Spanish to members of his diocese in Peru.

Prior to Pope Francis, the last pope who belonged to a religious order was the Camodolese monk who, in 1831, became Pope Gregory XVI. So, having two popes back-to-back from religious orders is an anomaly, especially given that only thirty-four of 267 popes have come from religious orders. But then, since the establishment of Benedictines in the fifth century and the rise of the Dominicans and Franciscans in the thirteenth, religious orders have been instrumental in reforming the Church.

In his address to the College of Cardinals last Saturday, the Holy Father explained why took the name Leo:
There are different reasons for [choosing Leo], but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour3
For those who may not know, Rerum Novarum launched the Church's modern social teaching. In this letter, Pope Leo XIII noted that "Among the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice- with that justice which is called distributive- toward each and every class alike."4 Distributive justice is concerned with the just distribution of resources, goods, and opportunity in a society. Distributive justice sees to a just and equitable distribution of wealth, one in which workers share in the profits their labor generates.

It's easy to forget that in his 1991 encyclical marking the one hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Centesimus Annus, Pope Saint John Paul II warned of the spiritual vacuity of consumerism, which like Marxism, reduces the human person "to the sphere of economics and the satisfaction of material needs."5 Neither must we forget Pope Saint Paul VI's still prophetic encyclical Populorum progresso in which he warned that "during troubled times some people are strongly tempted by he alluring but deceitful promises of would-be saviors. Who does not see the concomitant dangers: public upheavals, civil insurrection, the drift toward totalitarian ideologies?"6

Speaking to journalists earlier today, the Holy Father said that Church recognizes of the witness of journalists who take risks to tell the truth.
I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives – the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed, because only informed individuals can make free choices. The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press
He the same address, he noted: "The Church must face the challenges of the times...Saint Augustine reminds us of this when he said, 'Let us live well and the times will be good. We are the times.'"7

Pope Leo's episcopal motto is In Illo uno unum- "In the One we are one." It is n the Eucharist that the Lord's prayer to the Father is realized, if not yet fully.8 May God strengthen, bless, and guide Pope Leo XIV as he walks in the shoes of the Galilean fisherman. May the Good Shepherd give him the grace to serve His flock in truth and love. Vive il papa!


1 See La Croix, "Cardinal Prevost's warning in the face of polarization," 9 May 2025.
2 Pope Leo XIV. Urbi et Orbi- Prima Benedictio 8 May 2025.
3 Pope Leo XIV. Address to the College of Cardinals, 10 May 2025.
4 Pope Leo XIII. Encyclical letter Rerum novarum (On Capital and Labor), sec. 33.
5 Pope John Paul II. Encyclical letter Centesimus annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum novarum), sec. 19.
6 Pope Paul VI. Encyclical letter Populorum progresso (On the Development of Peoples), sec. 11.
7 Pope Leo XIV. Address to Representatives of the Media, 12 May 2025.
8 See John 17:20-23.

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Year C Fourth Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 13:14.43-52; Psalm 100:1-2.35; Revelation 7:9.14b-17; John 10:27-30

“The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.”1 Being filled with the joy of the Spirit is the essence of Christian discipleship because we know Jesus Christ is risen.

What an exciting week for the Church! After the death of Pope Francis, the Galilean fisherman, Peter, is succeeded by Pope Leo XIV. This, dear friends, is a symbol of resurrection and a cause for hope.

Like Jesus’ first disciples, over the course of a few short days, the Lord has turned our mourning into dancing.2 Pope Leo is Christ’s Vicar on earth. Coming from the word “vicarious,” “vicar” refers to someone who stands in for another. The Vicar of Christ, therefore, stands in for the Good Shepherd in whose name he speaks and on whose authority he acts.

Today, in the Eucharistic prayer, we will pray for this Eucharist to unite us together under the leadership of Leo our pope and Oscar our bishop. Indeed, it is through our bishop that we are in communion with the Bishop of Rome and, through the Roman Pontiff with the Church throughout the world. This is the great Eucharistic mystery that shows us that far from being incidental to salvation, the Church is necessary. It is often the case today that many have a very thin ecclesiology, only a faint grasp of the profound mystery of the Church.

For me, one of the best things in watching events unfold in Saint Peter's Square after white smoke appeared was seeing the Catholicity of the Church on display in such an amazing way. The joy of the pilgrims came through screen. This excitement is or at least should be the Church: Evangelii gaudium- the joy of the Gospel, to borrow a Latin phrase. Or, as we’re reminded several times during Lent by the reading for Morning Prayer on Sunday: “Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength!”3

I realize that in our individualistic age to speak in terms of obligation with regard to God can seem like blasphemy to many. Far from it. Just as loving your neighbor places obligations on you, so does loving God. Assisting at Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation is the first of the Church’s five precepts. While, according to the Compendium to the Catechism, these precepts are given “to guarantee for the faithful the indispensable minimum in the spirit of prayer, the sacramental life, moral commitment and growth in love of God and neighbor,” they are little known today.4

This may seem a bit heavy-handed but all of us need grace to grow in love of God and neighbor, that is, to grow in holiness. The Eucharist, which is the source and summit of our faith, is the inexhaustible fountain of this grace, of unmerited divine assistance. This is why evangelization amounts to a beggar telling another beggar where he can find bread.

The Good Shepherd; Catacomb of Callixtus/Callisto- 3rd century


Lest you think clergy are immune, let me share a joke Father Rene once told from this ambo. It is all the dearer to me because I knew of some of his struggles. A man was lying in bed on Sunday morning. His mother came in and said, “It’s time to get up and go to Church.” He sleepily replied, “I don’t want to go.” His mother persisted, “You need to get up and go to Church.” He said, “Nobody there likes me.” Undeterred, his mom said, “You must get up and go to Church!” He said, “Why?” To which his mother replied, “You’re the pastor.”

I had a time early on after becoming Catholic, in the early years of our marriage, when attending Sunday Mass became hard for me. In talking to a trusted elderly priest (who Holly will remember, Father Maurice Prefontaine), I told him about my struggle and said that I wasn’t experiencing a crisis of faith but a crisis of practice. He lovingly took my hands in his and gently told me, “Starting Sunday, just go.” I’ve followed this simple advice ever since. If, like me then, you’ve been absent from the Sunday assembly, bring that to the Lord in confession.

From the beginning, centuries before there were daily Masses, Christians gathered on Sunday, Dies Domini, the Lord’s Day, the eighth day of eternity, the day Christ rose from the dead. In 1998, Pope Saint John Paul II wrote an Apostolic Letter on the importance of Sunday. In his letter, entitled Dies Domini, he wrote:
It is right, therefore, to claim, in the words of a fourth century homily, that “the Lord's Day” is "the lord of days.” Those who have received the grace of faith in the Risen Lord cannot fail to grasp the significance of this day of the week with the same deep emotion which led Saint Jerome to say: “Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, it is the day of Christians, it is our day.” For Christians, Sunday is “the fundamental feastday,” established not only to mark the succession of time but to reveal time's deeper meaning5
As the inspired author of Hebrew enjoined: “We should not stay away from our assembly, as is the custom of some, but encourage one another, and this all the more as you see the day drawing near.”6 Or, as we read about primitive Church earlier in the Acts of Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.”7

Most of us understand grasp that far from having to go to Mass, we get to go and participate in Mass on Sunday. Many of us know through experience that it is our participation in Sunday Mass that gives meaning and purpose to the rest of our lives. It is in the Eucharist that the Risen Lord comes to meet His people in time and space. While God is surely in all of creation, there is no way in which Christ is more palpably present than in the Eucharist. This is why the Lord commanded his followers to do this and not something else.

It may be the case that going to Church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. But a car that never goes to the garage will likely break down sooner than later. We gather to give thanks, to be healed, to help each other as we make our way through life and to be reminded of our eternal destiny and of God’s unfailing love given us in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, which He lavishes on us through the Eucharist.

Since the Lord is my Shepherd, as the psalmist insists, “there in nothing I shall want.” It is with the Eucharist that the Lord, my Shepherd, sets a table before me, anoints my head with oil, and makes my cup overflow.8 Mass is where you hear the Shepherd’s voice and where He feeds His flock. With so many voices saying so many different and contradictory things, it takes time to become familiar with our Shepherd’s voice.

Pope Leo’s episcopal motto is In Illo uno unum, meaning “In the One, we are one.” It is through the Eucharist that by the power and working of the Holy Spirit we are made one in the One, Christ Jesus the Lord.


1 Acts 13:52.
2 Psalm 30:12.
3 Nehemiah 8:10b.
4 Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sec. 431.
5 Pope John Paul II. Apostolic Letter Dies Domini, sec 2.
6 Hebrews 10:25.
7 Acts 2:42.
8 See Psalm 23.

Friday, May 9, 2025

Urbi et Orbi- Prima Benedictio



URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
LEO XIV


First Blessing


Peace be with you all!

Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd, who gave his life for the flock of God. I too would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, to reach your families, all people, wherever they are, all peoples, all the earth. Peace be with you!

This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a disarmed peace and a disarming, humble and persevering peace. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally.

We still keep in our ears that weak but ever courageous voice of Pope Francis blessing Rome, the Pope who blessed Rome, gave his blessing to the world, to the entire world, that Easter morning. Allow me to follow up on that same blessing: God loves us, God loves you all, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God's hands. Therefore, without fear, united hand-in-hand with God and among ourselves, let us move forward! We are disciples of Christ. Christ precedes us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as a bridge to be reached by God and his love. Let us also help each other to build bridges, with dialogue, with encounter, uniting us all to be one people always in peace. Thanks to Pope Francis!

I would also like to thank all my brother Cardinals who have chosen me to be the Successor of Peter and to walk together with you, as a united Church always seeking peace, justice, always trying to work as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear, to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries.

I am a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian, who said: “With you I am a Christian and for you a bishop”. In this sense we can all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.

[Translated from Spanish- the rest is translated from Italian] And if you'll allow me a word, a greeting to everyone, and in particular to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied their bishop, shared their faith, and given so much, so much, to continue being the faithful Church of Jesus Christ.

To all of you, brothers and sisters of Rome, of Italy, of the whole world: we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always tries to be close especially to those who suffer.

Today is the day of the Feast of Our Lady of Pompeii. Our Mother Mary always wants to walk with us, to be close, to help us with her intercession and her love. So I would like to pray with you. Let us pray together for this new mission, for the whole Church, for peace in the world and let us ask this special grace to Mary, our Mother: Hail Mary…

Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 14:5-8; Psalm 115:1-4.15-16; John 14:21-26 Before you can obey the Lord’s commandment you must first know what it is. In c...