VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - # 019
DATE 27-01-2015

Summary:
- Pope's Message for Lent 2015: "Make your hearts firm"
- Indifference, key theme of the Pope's Message for Lent 2015
- Holy Father's calendar for February to April 2015

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 Pope's Message for Lent 2015: "Make your hearts firm"
 Vatican City, 27 January 2015 (VIS) - The following is the full text of the
Holy Father Francis' message for Lent 2015, entitled "Make your hearts firm".
The document was signed in the Vatican on 4 October 2014, the festivity of St.
Francis of Assisi.
 "Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each communities and
every believer. Above all it is a 'time of grace'. God does not ask of us
anything that he himself has not first given us. "We love because he first has
loved us'. He is not aloof from us. Each one of us has a place in his heart.
He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away
from him. He is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be
indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and
comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we
are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they
endure. Our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and
comfortable, I do not think about those less well off. Today, this selfish
attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that
we can speak of a globalisation of indifference. It is a problem which we, as
Christians, need to confront.
 When the people of God are converted to his love, they find answers to the
questions that history continually raises. One of the most urgent challenges
which I would like to address in this Message is precisely the globalisation
of indifference.
 Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation
for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice
of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.
 God is not indifferent to our world; he so loves it that he gave his Son for
our salvation. In the Incarnation, in the earthly life, death, and
resurrection of the Son of God, the gate between God and man, between heaven
and earth, opens once for all. The Church is like the hand holding open this
gate, thanks to her proclamation of God's word, her celebration of the
sacraments and her witness of the faith which works through love. But the
world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes
into the world and the world comes to him. Hence the hand, which is the
Church, must never be surprised if it is rejected, crushed and wounded.
 God's people, then, need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent
and withdraw into ourselves. To further this renewal, I would like to propose
for our reflection three biblical texts.
 1. 'If one member suffers, all suffer together' - The Church
 The love of God breaks through that fatal withdrawal into ourselves which is
indifference. The Church offers us this love of God by her teaching and
especially by her witness. But we can only bear witness to what we ourselves
have experienced. Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness
and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and
others. This is clearly seen in the liturgy of Holy Thursday, with its rite of
the washing of feet. Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet, but he came to
realise that Jesus does not wish to be just an example of how we should wash
one another's feet. Only those who have first allowed Jesus to wash their own
feet can then offer this service to others. Only they have 'a part' with him
and thus can serve others.
 Lent is a favourable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may
become more like him. This happens whenever we hear the word of God and
receive the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. There we become what we
receive: the Body of Christ. In this body there is no room for the
indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts. For whoever is of
Christ, belongs to one body, and in him we cannot be indifferent to one
another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is
honoured, all the parts share its joy'.
 The Church is the communio sanctorum not only because of her saints, but also
because she is a communion in holy things: the love of God revealed to us in
Christ and all his gifts. Among these gifts there is also the response of
those who let themselves be touched by this love. In this communion of saints,
in this sharing in holy things, no one possesses anything alone, but shares
everything with others. And since we are united in God, we can do something
for those who are far distant, those whom we could never reach on our own,
because with them and for them, we ask God that all of us may be open to his
plan of salvation.
 2. 'Where is your brother?' - Parishes and Communities
 All that we have been saying about the universal Church must now be applied
to the life of our parishes and communities. Do these ecclesial structures
enable us to experience being part of one body? A body which receives and
shares what God wishes to give? A body which acknowledges and cares for its
weakest, poorest and most insignificant members? Or do we take refuge in a
universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the
Lazarus sitting before our closed doors?
 In order to receive what God gives us and to make it bear abundant fruit, we
need to press beyond the boundaries of the visible Church in two ways.
 In the first place, by uniting ourselves in prayer with the Church in heaven.
The prayers of the Church on earth establish a communion of mutual service and
goodness which reaches up into the sight of God. Together with the saints who
have found their fulfilment in God, we form part of that communion in which
indifference is conquered by love. The Church in heaven is not triumphant
because she has turned her back on the sufferings of the world and rejoices in
splendid isolation. Rather, the saints already joyfully contemplate the fact
that, through Jesus' death and resurrection, they have triumphed once and for
all over indifference, hardness of heart and hatred. Until this victory of
love penetrates the whole world, the saints continue to accompany us on our
pilgrim way. Saint Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church, expressed her
conviction that the joy in heaven for the victory of crucified love remains
incomplete as long as there is still a single man or woman on earth who
suffers and cries out in pain: 'I trust fully that I shall not remain idle in
heaven; my desire is to continue to work for the Church and for souls'.
 We share in the merits and joy of the saints, even as they share in our
struggles and our longing for peace and reconciliation. Their joy in the
victory of the Risen Christ gives us strength as we strive to overcome our
indifference and hardness of heart.
 In the second place, every Christian community is called to go out of itself
and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part,
especially with the poor and those who are far away. The Church is missionary
by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and
people.
 Her mission is to bear patient witness to the One who desires to draw all
creation and every man and woman to the Father. Her mission is to bring to all
a love which cannot remain silent. The Church follows Jesus Christ along the
paths that lead to every man and woman, to the very ends of the earth. In each
of our neighbours, then, we must see a brother or sister for whom Christ died
and rose again. What we ourselves have received, we have received for them as
well. Similarly, all that our brothers and sisters possess is a gift for the
Church and for all humanity.
 Dear brothers and sisters, how greatly I desire that all those places where
the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become
islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!
 3. 'Make your hearts firm!' - Individual Christians
 As individuals too, we have are tempted by indifference. Flooded with news
reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete
inability to help. What can we do to avoid being caught up in this spiral of
distress and powerlessness?
 First, we can pray in communion with the Church on earth and in heaven. Let
us not underestimate the power of so many voices united in prayer! The '24
Hours for the Lord' initiative, which I hope will be observed on 13-14 March
throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level, is meant to be a sign of
this need for prayer.
 Second, we can help by acts of charity, reaching out to both those near and
far through the Church's many charitable organisations. Lent is a favourable
time for showing this concern for others by small yet concrete signs of our
belonging to the one human family.
 Third, the suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need
reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my
brothers and sisters. If we humbly implore God's grace and accept our own
limitations, we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God's love
holds out to us. We will also be able to resist the diabolical temptation of
thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves.
 As a way of overcoming indifference and our pretensions to self-sufficiency,
I would invite everyone to live this Lent as an opportunity for engaging in
what Benedict XVI called a formation of the heart. A merciful heart does not
mean a weak heart. Anyone who wishes to be merciful must have a strong and
steadfast heart, closed to the tempter but open to God. A heart which lets
itself be pierced by the Spirit so as to bring love along the roads that lead
to our brothers and sisters. And, ultimately, a poor heart, one which realises
its own poverty and gives itself freely for others.
 During this Lent, then, brothers and sisters, let us all ask the Lord: 'Fac
cor nostrum secundum cor tuum': Make our hearts like yours (Litany of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus). In this way we will receive a heart which is firm and
merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or
prey to the globalisation of indifference.

--- MPost/386 v1.21
 * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)