"And then", continued Francis, "we can ask the Lord, just as He came to
cleanse the temple, to come and cleanse our soul. And we imagine Him, as He
comes with a whip of ropes... No, this is not what cleanses the soul! Do you
know what the whip is that Jesus uses to cleanse our soul? Mercy. Open your
hearts to the mercy of Jesus. ... And if we open our hearts to Jesus' mercy,
so that He may cleanse our heart, our soul, then Jesus will trust in us".

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 Angelus: let us build a temple to God with our lives
 Vatican City, 8 March 2015 (VIS) - At midday today, Pope Francis appeared at
the window of his study in the Vatican Apostolic Palace to pray the Angelus
with the faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square. Francis'
meditation focused on the meaning of the episode of the expulsion of the money
changers from the temple, and he remarked that this prophetic gesture made a
powerful impression on the people and on the disciples. "We have here,
according to John, the first announcement of the death and Resurrection of
Christ", said the Pope; "His body, destroyed by the violence of sin on the
Cross, in the Resurrection, will become the meeting place between God and men.
... His humanity is the true temple, where God is revealed, speaks, meets; and
the true worshippers of God are not the guardians of the material temple, the
holders of power and religious knowledge, but are those who worship God 'in
spirit and truth'".
 "In this Lenten period", he continued, "we are preparing to celebrate Easter,
when we renew the promises of our Baptism. Let us walk the world like Jesus
and make of our existence We walk into the world as Jesus did and we make of
our entire existence a sign of His love for our brothers, especially the
weakest and the poorest. We build a temple to God in our lives. And in this
way, we make Him 'encounterable' to the many people we find along our path. If
we are witnesses to this living Christ, many people will encounter Jesus in
us, in our testimony".
 The Pontiff encouraged those present to "let the Lord enter with His mercy,
to bring cleanliness to our hearts". He added, "every Eucharist we celebrate
with faith makes us grow as a living temple to the Lord, thanks to the
communion with His crucified and risen Body. ... May Mary Most Holy, the
privileged dwelling of the Son of God, accompany and sustain us on this Lenten
path, so that we may rediscover the beauty of the encounter with Christ, Who
will free us and save us".

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 Francis' greetings on International Women's Day: "women give us to the
ability to see the world with different eyes"
 Vatican City, 8 March 2015 (VIS) - After today's Angelus prayer, the Holy
Father urged, "during Lent, let us try to be closer to those who are living
through moments of difficulty; let us be closer to them with affection, prayer
and solidarity".
 He went on to address some words to women on International Women's Day: "a
greeting to all women! To all the women who work every day to build a more
human and welcoming society. And a fraternal thank you to those who in a
thousands ways bear witness to the Gospel and work in the Church. This is for
us an opportunity to reaffirm the importance and the necessity of their
presence in life. A world where women are marginalised is a barren world,
because women not only bring life, but they also give us the ability to see
beyond - they see beyond themselves - and they transmit to us the ability to
understand the world through different eyes, to hear things with more
creative, more patient, more tender hearts. A prayer and a special blessing
for all women present here in the square and for all women! Greetings!".

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 Behaviour contrary to justice, honesty and charity cannot be covered up with
worship
 Vatican City, 8 March 2015 (VIS) - "Liturgy is not something exterior or
distant, so that while it is celebrated I can think of other things or pray
the rosary. No, there is a link between the liturgical celebration and what I
carry with me in my life", said the Pope in his homily during his pastoral
visit to the Roman parish of Ognissanti (All Saints) on the 50th anniversary
of the first Mass in Italian celebrated in the same parish by Blessed Paul VI,
following the liturgical reforms established by Vatican Council II.
 Francis commented on the Gospel reading of St. John in which Jesus drives out
the money changers from the Temple, with the exclamation, "Do not make my
Father's house a house of trade." This expression refers not only to the
commerce in the temple courtyards, but rather "regards a type of religiosity".
He continued, "Jesus' gesture is one of cleansing, purification, and the
attitude He condemns can be identified in the prophetic texts, according to
which God is displeased by external worship made up of material sacrifices and
based on personal interest. His gesture is a call to authentic worship, to
correspondence between liturgy and life. ... Therefore, the Church calls us to
have and to promote an authentic liturgical life, so that there may be harmony
between what the liturgy celebrates and what we live in our existence".
 Jesus' disciple "does not go to Church solely to observe a precept, to make
sure he is not at odds with a God he must not 'disturb' too much. ... Jesus'
disciple goes to Church to encounter the Lord and to find in His grace,
working in the Sacraments, the strength to think and act according to the
Gospel. Therefore, we cannot delude ourselves that we can enter into the
Lord's house to cover up, with prayers and acts of devotion, behaviour
contrary to the demands of justice, honesty or charity towards our neighbour.
We cannot substitute with religious homage what is due to others, deferring
true conversion. Worship and liturgical celebrations are the privileged space
for hearing the voice of the Lord, Who guides us on the road to rectitude and
Christian perfection".
 This involves "fulfilling an itinerary of conversion and penance, to remove
the dregs of sin from our life, as Jesus did, cleansing the temple of petty
interests. And Lent is an auspicious time for this, as it is the time of inner
renewal, of forgiveness of sins, the time in which we are called upon to
rediscover the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, that enables us to
pass from the shadows of sin into the light of grace and friendship with
Jesus".
 "Right here, fifty years ago, Blessed Paul VI inaugurated, in a certain
sense, liturgical reform with the celebration of the vernacular Mass in the
language of the people. I hope that this circumstance may revive love for
God's house in all of you".
 Following Mass, as he left the church, the Pope greeted the many faithful who
awaited him. "Thank you, thank you for your welcome", he said. "That you for
this prayer with me during Mass; and let us thank the Lord for what He has
done in His Church in these fifty years of liturgical reform. It was a
courageous gesture of the Church, to draw closer to the people of God so they
could better understand what she does, and this is important for us, to follow
Mass in this way. And it is not possible to step backwards, we must always
move ahead, always ahead; those who go back, err. Let us go ahead on this
road".

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 The Pope on the sixtieth anniversary of Communion and Liberation: "Keep alive
the call of the first encounter with Christ, and be free"
 Vatican City, 7 March 2015 (VIS) - More than seventy thousand people,
belonging to the movement Communion and Liberation (CL) participated in a mass
meeting with Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square this morning, to commemorate
the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of CL and the tenth of the death of
its founder, the priest Luigi Giussani. The movement was established in Italy
in 1954, when Giussani (1922-2005), on the basis of his experience in the
"Berchet" classical lyceum in Milan, developed the initiative of Christian
presence that used the already existing name of "Gioventu Studentesca" (GS).
The current name Communion and Liberation (CL), which appeared for the first
time in 1969, summarises the conviction that the Christian event lived in
communion, is the foundation of authentic human liberation.
 After listening to greetings from the priest Julian Carron, president of the
fraternity, the Holy Father thanked all those present for their warm displays
of affection and gave the various reasons for his gratitude to Don Giussani.
"The first, and most personal, is the good that this man has done for me and
for my priestly life, through reading his books and his articles. The other
reason is that his thought is profoundly human and reaches the deepest
yearning of the person. You are aware of how important the experience of
encounter was for Don Giussani - not with an idea, but with a person, with
Jesus Christ. So, he educated in freedom, leading to the encounter with
Christ, as Christ gives us true freedom".

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