• Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Voices of Faith
  • Subscribe
The Texas Catholic
The Texas Catholic

Dallas, Texas

Today is Saturday, September 30, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Voices of Faith
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Pope Francis

Facing facts, coming to terms with one’s past bring peace, pope says

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Pope Francis greets the crowd during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican Sept. 5. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See POPE-AUDIENCE-COMMANDMENTS-REST Sept. 5, 2018.

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — People need to make peace with their lives and anything they are running from, rather than lose themselves to escapism and playful distraction, Pope Francis said.

There is an “industry of distraction” in full force today, which paints the ideal world as being “a big playground where everybody has fun” and the ideal individual as one who “makes money in order to have fun, find satisfaction” in the many “vast and diverse avenues of pleasure,” he said Sept. 5 during his weekly general audience.

Such an attitude leads to “dissatisfaction with an existence anesthetized by fun, which isn’t rest, but alienation and escaping from reality,” he added. “People have never been able to rest like they can today and yet people have never felt as much emptiness as they do today.”

The pope continued his series of audience talks about the Ten Commandments, focusing on keeping the Lord’s day holy.

It seems like an easy commandment to fulfill, he said, but it isn’t because people need to recognize there is a false kind of rest marked by avoidance and distraction, and authentic rest, which is being at peace with and giving thanks for the gift of life.

After God made the heavens and the earth, he rested, making the seventh day holy. This day reflects “God’s joy for all he created. It is a day of contemplation and blessing” and giving praise — not running away, the pope said.

“It is a time for looking at reality and saying, ‘How beautiful life is!'” he said. “To the idea of rest as escaping reality, the commandment responds with rest as blessing reality.”

In fact, the Eucharist, which lies at the heart of Sunday, means “thanksgiving,” he said; it is a day to thank the Lord for his mercy, his gifts and for the gift of life.

Sunday, he added, is a day to come to terms with one’s life, to find peace — realizing life is not easy, “but it is precious.”

So many people have so many options available for having fun, but they are not at peace with their lives, he said.

“Distancing themselves from the bitter wounds of their heart, people need to make peace with the thing they are running from. It is necessary to reconcile with one’s past, with the facts one is not facing, with the difficult parts of one’s own existence,” he said, asking everyone to reflect on whether they have come to terms with their own life.

Finding peace is a choice, he said. It is not changing one’s past, but is becoming reconciled with what has happened, “to accept and give value” to one’s life.

  • Tags
  • Pope Francis
  • The Texas Catholic
  • Vatican
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article At hearing, Kavanaugh highlights his Catholic Charities' volunteer work
Previous article Pope begins Mass in Dublin with penitential plea for abuse scandals

Related Posts

Hope must be restored in communities, young people, pope says Pope Francis
Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Hope must be restored in communities, young people, pope says

Pope says his new ecology document is titled 'Laudate Deum' Pope Francis
Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Pope says his new ecology document is titled 'Laudate Deum'

Vatican astronomer helps NASA in historic mission to study asteroid Pope Francis
Thursday, September 21, 2023

Vatican astronomer helps NASA in historic mission to study asteroid

Texas Catholic Classics

A look at the five Dallas law enforcement officers who gave their lives while protecting citizens during a mass shooting in downtown Dallas in July 2016.

 

How a child with special needs inspired a high school volleyball team, community and a family who heeded God’s call to protect life.

 

After a young runner collapsed at a Dallas marathon, grace and providence unfolded for those involved in the valiant effort to help her.

   

In the summer of 2016, 50 students and 25 chaperones from Dallas Catholic high schools traveled to Nicaragua for a 10-day mission trip.

 

Early on a November morning, Kenndrick Mendieta bounded from the gym at Cristo Rey Dallas College Prep toward the campus’ athletic fields as clouds lifted on a fresh new day.

 

Subscribe

Get the award-winning Texas Catholic delivered to your door. Use the menu below to subscribe now.


Subscription length




 

Photo Gallery

Click here to find your favorite Texas Catholic photographs.

The Texas Catholic Newspaper

Catholic Diocese of Dallas
Michael Gresham, Editor

3725 Blackburn Street
Dallas, Texas 75219
(214) 379-2800

Our Affiliated Sites

Texas Catholic Youth

Revista Católica

Legal and Other

Contact us

Terms of service

Privacy policy

Site map

Site powered by TexasCatholicMedia

© 2013-2019 The Texas Catholic Publishing Company. All rights reserved.