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

Dallas, Texas

Today is Thursday, March 30, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Top Story

Pope encourages people to rediscover the need for prayer

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Pope Francis arrives for Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae May 6, 2020. The pope offered his early morning Mass for journalists and members of the media who, despite the risks, work tirelessly to inform the public of the ongoing pandemic. (CNS photo/Vatican Media) See POPE-MASS-MEDIA May 6, 2020.

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — The coronavirus pandemic is a “favorable time to rediscover the need for prayer in our lives; let us open the doors of our hearts to the love of God our father, who will listen to us,” Pope Francis said.

At his weekly general audience May 6, the pope began a new series of audience talks about prayer, which is “the breath of faith, its most appropriate expression, like a cry arising from the heart.”

At the end of the audience, which was livestreamed from the papal library in the Apostolic Palace, the pope offered a special prayer and appeal for justice for “exploited workers,” especially farmworkers.

Pope Francis said that May 1, International Workers’ Day, he received many messages about problems in the world of work. “I was particularly struck by that of the farmworkers, among them many migrants, who work in the Italian countryside. Unfortunately, many are very harshly exploited.”

An Italian government proposal to grant work permits to immigrant workers in the country without proper papers has shined a spotlight particularly on farmworkers and their long hours, poor pay and miserable living conditions while also highlighting their essential role in ensuring an adequate supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for the country.

“It is true that the current crisis affects everyone, but people’s dignity must always be respected,” the pope said. “That is why I add my voice to the appeal of these workers and of all exploited workers. May the crisis give us the opportunity to make the dignity of the person and the dignity of work the center of our concern.”

The pope’s audience began with reading the story from the Gospel of Mark about Bartimaeus, the blind man, who repeatedly cries out to Jesus for healing. The pope said that of all the Gospel characters who ask Jesus for help, he finds Bartimaeus “the most likable of all.”

“At the top of his voice,” Bartimaeus cries out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And he does so over and over again, annoying the people around him, the pope noted.

“Jesus speaks to him and asks him to express what he wants — this is important — and so his cry becomes a request, ‘I want to see,'” the pope said.

Faith, he said, “is having two hands raised (and) a voice that cries out to implore the gift of salvation.”

Humility, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, is essential for authentic prayer, the pope added, because prayer arises from knowing “our state of precariousness, our continual thirst for God.”

“Faith is a cry,” he said, while “nonfaith is suffocating that cry, a kind of ‘omerta,'” he said, using the word for the mafia code of silence.

“Faith is protesting against a painful situation we do not understand,” he said, while “nonfaith is limiting ourselves to enduring a situation we have become accustomed to. Faith is the hope of being saved; nonfaith is getting used to the evil that oppresses us.”

Obviously, the pope said, Christians are not the only ones who pray because every man and woman has within themselves the desire for mercy and aid.

“As we continue on our pilgrimage of faith, may we, like Bartimaeus, always persevere in prayer, especially in our darkest moments, and ask the Lord with confidence: ‘Jesus have mercy on me. Jesus, have mercy on us!'”
 

  • Tags
  • Coronavirus
  • COVID-19
  • pandemic
  • Pope Francis
  • Vatican
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article Rural life novena ends on May 15 feast of St. Isidore, farmers' patron
Previous article Father Dankasa: An Infectious Relationship

Related Posts

Pope hospitalized for respiratory infection, Vatican says Pope Francis
Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Pope hospitalized for respiratory infection, Vatican says

Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops supports parental choice in education bills Diocese
Sunday, March 26, 2023

Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops supports parental choice in education bills

Confession is 'encounter of love' that fights evil, pope tells priests Pope Francis
Friday, March 24, 2023

Confession is 'encounter of love' that fights evil, pope tells priests

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.