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

Dallas, Texas

Today is Wednesday, March 29, 2023
  • Home
  • Diocese
  • Bishop Burns
  • Synod
  • Columnists
  • Revista Catolica
  • Vatican
  • Subscribe
  • Follow
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Instagram
Home
Pope Francis

Memory, not nostalgia, helps Christians work for God’s kingdom, pope says

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY — For Christians, memory involves remembering God’s promises for the future; it’s not about “nostalgia, which is a real spiritual pathology,” Pope Francis said.

Nostalgia “blocks creativity and makes us rigid and ideological people even in the social, political and ecclesial spheres,” he said, while memory, which is “intrinsically linked to love and experience,” is an essential dimension of human life.

The pope sent a video message Nov. 26 to Italy’s national Festival of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a three-day online event focusing on the theme, “Memory of the Future.”

The title, Pope Francis said, is a call to hope.

“For us Christians, the future has a name and this name is hope,” he said. “Hope is the virtue of a heart that does not close in the dark, does not stop at the past, does not just get by in the present, but knows how to see tomorrow.”

If one has been baptized into Christ, the pope said, then one must remember the sacrifice that Christ made for the salvation of all and live a life that prepares for his promised coming again and for the establishment of his kingdom.

“We are therefore called to live our lives in communion with God, that is: in the intimacy of prayer in the presence of the Lord; in love for the people we meet, which is in charity; and finally toward mother Earth, which indicates a process of transfiguration of the world,” he said.

“We cannot live as believers in the world unless we manifest Christ’s very life in us,” Pope Francis said.

“This attitude helps us to overcome the temptation of utopia, of reducing the proclamation of the Gospel to a simple sociological horizon or to becoming involved in the ‘marketing’ of various economic theories or political factions,” he said.

“With the strength and creativity of God’s life in us,” the pope said, Christians will fascinate others and draw them to the Gospel, as well as promote “projects of a new, inclusive economy and politics capable of love.”

  • Tags
  • Faith
  • Pope Francis
  • Vatican
Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Pinterest
Next article ‘Give what you can’
Previous article Black Catholics express joy at elevation of first African American cardinal

Related Posts

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

Pope hospitalized for respiratory infection, Vatican says

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

Pope asks Catholics to renew consecration of world to Mary every March 25 Pope Francis
Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Pope asks Catholics to renew consecration of world to Mary every March 25

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.