Belgium is consistently rated as one of the world's most secular societies, but Francis insisted that doesn't mean we can stop trying to follow our template of service, mission and joy.

"We have moved from a Christianity located within a welcoming social framework to a ‘minority' Christianity, or better, a Christianity of witness" he said.

"This requires the courage to undertake an ecclesial conversion for enabling those pastoral transformations that concern our habitual ways of doing things, the language in which we express our faith, so that they are truly directed to evangelisation."

It's also important to appreciate diversity, he added. "Unity in the Church is not uniformity, but rather finding harmony within diversity!"

Priests role

Priests have a special role in transforming the Church, Francis said.

They will need to step forward courageously, away from past legacies and show they are "in love with Jesus Christ and are attentive to responding to the often implicit demands of the Gospel as they walk with God's holy people" Francis explained.

"In doing so, they are sometimes ahead of their people, sometimes in their midst and sometimes behind them" he said.

Catholic Luxembourg

During his one-day visit to Luxembourg last Thursday, Pope Francis addressed the Catholic community and spoke again about service, mission and joy.

"The spirit of the Gospel is a spirit of welcoming, of openness to everyone. It does not admit any kind of exclusion" he said.

"What drives us to be missionaries is our desire to make known to as many brothers and sisters as possible the joy of encountering Christ.

"Love moves us to proclaim the Gospel, which opens us to others ... This is a beautiful, healthy, joyful dynamism that we would do well to cultivate in ourselves and among those around us ..."

"Faith is full of joy" he told the Catholic community.

"It is a 'dance' because we know that we are children of a God who is our friend, who wants us to be happy and united, who rejoices above all in our salvation."

We should show our happiness and joy in the Gospel, which makes us believe and grow so much, Francis said.

Source

• Catholic Culture
• Crux

To many Catholics, this meeting came as a surprise.

Traditionally, the themes of detachment, sacrifice, humility and repentance appear far more frequently in religious writing and preaching than the spiritual benefits of a good laugh.

But as a specialist in medieval Christian history, I am aware that, since antiquity, many theologians, preachers, monastics and other Christians have embraced the role of humour as a valuable part of Christian spirituality.

Some have even become popularly known as the patron saints of comedians or laughter.

Comedy is natural

Many Catholic saints have considered laughter to be an integral part of nature itself.

For example, the 12th-century German nun St. Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic poet and musician, wrote in a poem on the power of God:

I am the rain coming from the dew
That causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.

In the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi called himself the "Jongleur de Dieu" - troubadour or jester of God - because of his ministry.

He probably used a French reference because his mother came from France and spoke French at home.

Francis and his followers wandered from town to town, singing God's praises and preaching joyfully in the streets.

People laughed when he preached to birds in trees, and he once had to politely ask a large flock to stop chirping first.

The 16th-century nun and mystic St. Teresa of Avila wrote in a poem, alluding to the voice of Jesus Christ as love:

Love once said to me,
‘I know a song, would you like to hear it?'
And laughter came from every brick in the street
And from every pore in the sky.

Humour and play are an important part of human nature. They provide opportunities for relaxation and relief and offer a way to cope with the challenges of human life.

In the 13th century, Dominican scholastic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas composed a lengthy summary of theology that became one of the most important resources in the Catholic tradition: the Summa Theologica.

In it, he argued that humor and other kinds of joyful recreation offer the mind and soul the same kind of rest that the body needs.

Aquinas cautioned, however, that these kinds of words or activities must not become hurtful or indecent.

Comedy can heal

The shared experience of laughing can break down barriers across cultures and bring people together.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits in the 16th century, is said to have danced a jig to raise the spirits of a despondent man on retreat; he also praised a Jesuit novice for his healthy laughter.

In the same century, St. Philip Neri, who has been called the patron saint of humor and joy, was reputed to be a mystic and visionary.

To put others at ease, he engaged in pranks and jokes, once attending a gathering with half of his beard shaved off.

Some famous Catholic saints even faced death with a smile, such as the second-century deacon St. Lawrence, one of the patron saints of comedians.

The legend goes that as he was executed by being roasted alive on a gridiron over a hot fire, he joked with his executioners, saying, "Turn me over … I'm done on this side!"

This legend has carried over into the official story of his life.

The Carmelite nun St. Therese of Lisieux also lived a life marked by humour in the 19th century.

Even as she lay dying from tuberculosis at the age of 24, she is said to have joked with the other nuns and her doctor.

Supposedly, when a priest was called to give her the last rites, he refused because she looked too healthy. She replied that she would try to look sicker the next time he was called.

Popes and humor

Francis is far from the only pope to stress the value of humor in Catholic and Christian life.

Pope St. John XXIII, who in 1961 summoned the Second Vatican Council, calling all Catholic bishops worldwide to a series of formal meetings at the Vatican to update Catholicism, was known for his humour.

Famously, when asked once how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied, "About half of them."

The next pope, St. Paul VI - elected in 1963 - was an accomplished administrator known for his wit.

One of his papal documents was on the importance of "Christian joy."

Now on the path to sainthood as "blessed," John Paul I, who reigned for only a month in 1978, was known as "the smiling pope" because of his cheerfulness.

Pope St. John Paul II, the first non-Italian elected pope in almost 500 years, was only 58 years old when elected in 1978, and he was well-known for his sense of humour.

The German cardinal who succeeded him in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI, also valued the role of humour in a balanced Christian life: "Humour is in fact essential in the mirth of creation."

And before this 2024 audience with comedians, Francis discussed the topic of humor more fully in his 2018 apostolic exhortation.

In this important document, addressed to the whole Catholic Church, the Pope stated that holiness is within the reach of every believer and is achieved through a joyful life.

Humour has a section of its own within the exhortation.

In the audience with comedians on June 14, Francis, who took the name in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, the troubadour of God, has very publicly affirmed that for Catholics, humour is an important part of a faithful life.

The meeting even concluded with one of the pope's favorite prayers, for good humour, attributed to St. Thomas More, the chancellor of England under King Henry VIII - fitting, given More's legendary sense of humour.

Executed for treason in 1535, More is said to have asked the constable of the Tower of London to help him up the steps of the scaffold, with one of his last jokes: "For my coming down, I can shift for myself."

The prayer asks God for, among other things, "a good sense of humour … to share with others."

• First published in The Conversation
• Joanne M. Pierce is a Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.

We have our loves and our hates, our up days and down days, and the times when we just want to sit quietly and be left alone.

Moreover, these emotional swings are not simply mood swings or based on how we feel when we get up in the morning.

There are times of genuine rejoicing - both for us as individuals and members of families and for us as members of larger groups.

Likewise, there are hard, sad, lonely, and even dangerous times.

And then there are all the times when we "just are" - neither good nor bad, neither particularly joyful nor sad, and we just keep moving on.

As people, individually and as members of communities, with all the changes in what is going on around and in our lives, we gather to worship God and thank him as our Father in heaven.

So, how do these ups and downs in our circumstances affect us as we gather for liturgy?

A simple answer is to see the liturgy as one more service we consume.

On this reckoning, we should have unmitigated joy at weddings.

A similar joy is when a new child is welcomed among us - and most Christians have traditionally celebrated births with a baptism.

Then, we could have sympathetic sorrow and mourning at funerals. With darkened tones, we could express our solidarity with those suffering after a disaster - and "mourning with those who mourn" is very important.

Following this approach, a wedding - always the paradigm for human rejoicing as we see in Mt 9:15 - should provide us with many opportunities to express high spirits: it should be an occasion for fun.

Indeed, this is a formula used by those who want God-free secular ceremonies to satisfy the human need to ritualise our experience: it is always good to have an opportunity to ventilate and express how we feel deep down.

The Christian approach

But the Christian approach is far more complex.

At a wedding, we introduce a dark note when we speak about "until death" separates the couple.

Conversely, at a funeral, we speak of death being "swallowed up in victory", of life being "changed, not ended", and, with joy, of the angels leading the dead person into paradise.

Indeed, the most emotionally charged liturgical moment in the year - on the Friday recalling the crucifixion - we see that afternoon liturgy not as a stand-alone gathering but as one scene in a three-act drama.

It begins with the joy of Holy Thursday evening and ends with the exultation of the Easter Vigil. So to be present at the Good Friday liturgy without the other two gatherings, in effect, is to miss the whole point.

It is Good Friday in a series of three rejoicings - and on that afternoon, we emphasise the rejoicing in the Cross's victory over death.

That most emotionally charged day is not one of dark mourning, nor do we rejoice in suffering, but we are rejoicing because we do not believe that suffering, death, and decay have the last word.

No matter when we gather to worship, there is a note of joy in our gathering, and the question now becomes: why strike this joyful note even in the face of suffering?

One famous answer to this question is based in the thought of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72).

It takes this line: we humans cannot cope with the harsh facts of our universe, the painful reality that all ends in failure and decay, and so we make continued existence bearable to ourselves by projecting a story of the kind of world we wish for.

The note of joy is a necessary deceit: if we did not put the futility and darkness of existence out of our minds, we would either go insane or abandon all effort.

So, just as the medic knows that telling a sick person that "you're improving" can improve the patient's health, telling ourselves a joyful story acts as a pep-talk and gives us energy to face tomorrow.

This theme was famously taken up by Karl Marx (1818-83), a disciple of Feuerbach.

Marx described religion as "the opium of the people": religion, and the joy it makes us think about, acts like a painkiller - opium was one of the most effective analgesics in the nineteenth century - amidst life's pain.

So is our joy in liturgy a fraud?

Joy as a profession of faith

The joyfulness inherent within Christian liturgy is a primary expression of faith: the Christ has conquered death, and our redemption is "close at hand".

The cry Maranatha - "Come, Lord Jesus" - is not only one of the oldest cries of our gatherings (1 Cor 16:22; Didache 10; and Apoc 22:20) but sets the whole tone of our liturgy.

When asked about "professions of faith" in the liturgy, we usually think of reciting the creed or perhaps the occasional renewal of baptismal promises.

Indeed, the whole idea of professing faith tends to bring to mind an exam with questions and answers.

We get images in our heads of a string of questions like "Do you believe this?" and "Do you believe that?" and a quiz-like encounter as to whether if you believe X, then you must believe Y, or can you just believe X and avoid believing in Y!

But this entire formalised approach to questions about believing only makes sense if we already believe that the loving Father's purposes will be brought to a joyful conclusion.

Even in times of suffering, our joyfulness is the expression of this faith - which may or may not be formalised in creeds, questions, and catechisms.

Joy is at core of our vision.

So when we gather - for instance, at a funeral - the sadness of our loss as the small group who grieve the death of a loved one has to find support and understanding from the larger community.

Death is death, and loss is loss, and tears are real: Jesus wept at the death of his friend (Jn 11:35).

But within that larger gathering, we hear another theme that must stand alongside our mourning: "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26).

It was to capture this two-sided aspect of how we face the future that led to many of the changes in the liturgy in the 1970s.

Until then, the standard colour of vestments at a funeral was black (in European culture the colour of death and mourning).

This was replaced by white - the colour of joy and resurrection - or purple as the colour of sadness but without the note of dark finality expressed by black.

Likewise, the coffin used to be surrounded by four or six candles in brown (unbleached wax) - another sign of mourning.

Now, at the head of the coffin stands the great symbol of Easter: the Paschal Candle.

That candle - linked to Easter, baptism, and beginnings - is there because, for all our grief, we confess that we continue our journey through death to new life.

The funeral is but the most explicit case of something true of every liturgy: our individual sadness and loneliness need to encounter our community faith.

The gathered community is the sacrament through which the joy of the risen Lord encounters us.

Joy communityu

Joyfulness as a mark of the Church

Eating together is both a marker of our joy and contributes to it.

Can you imagine a wedding without a feast? Can you imagine sharing a meal with friends that did not produce some laughter?

The early Christians saw their eating and drinking together as joyful occasions, foretastes of the final banquet. Indeed, they imagined their Christian life together as a feast.

They saw this theme of joy and festival setting them apart from others: the Lord had come among them, the Lord had shown them a Way, the Lord risen from the dead, and was present at their meals.

Over the centuries, this sense of the joyful presence of the Lord when Christians gathered was often lost from sight.

In its place came gatherings that focused on sinfulness and unworthiness.

The Lord's presence in the community was reduced to concerns over presence as a commodity, and there was a general fear that expressions of joyfulness were frivolous or encouraged buffoonery!

Religion and worship were a serious business - and it could all be wrapped up and defined in fixed boundaries.

In this careful packaging joy, that spark that sets an occasion alive, was often the first casualty.

One of the challenges of Vatican II - and by its nature, a challenge that could not be put into a set of rules or promulgated as a text - was to find a way of acting so that liturgy is not just performing a routine, even one divinely authorised.

It was to be an activity of those who rejoice in their new life in the Christ, which expresses this spark of the unexpected, this joyfulness of those who somehow grasp the reality of being loved by God, this sense of belonging within the People of God, this spark of joy.

But how do we move from a perfunctory routine to this new joyful openness? This is the challenge that faces every group that sits down to think about liturgy.

There are no prescriptions - one cannot produce a formula that will produce joyfulness - but one can remove many obstacles.

Here are just a couple of examples.

First, we tend to confuse the sacred with the solemn, so we become so formal in our ways of celebrating that we exclude our spontaneity.

We see this in some of the formal dress bishops and cardinals rejoice in.

They claim it points to the sacred but is merely over-the-top formality. Solemnity is what it conveys - and then it is simply human pomposity.

Likewise, we tend to cut corners in any repeated activity - less is done (e.g. communion from the Tabernacle), and fewer people are involved (e.g. same people do the tasks each week).

We repeat ourselves (e.g., same stock phrases in introductions and prayers), which gives the impression that we are just going through the motions: another job!

Whenever we are joyful, we are fully engaged here and now!

Likewise, we often slip into an approach to worship akin to someone filling an order: so many prayers delivered as per instructions.

But if we behaved like this on any joyful occasion in the rest of our lives (birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions), we would soon be told the extent of our failure!

But perhaps most importantly, we have all become so familiar with what we do week in and week out that we grow bored to tears - the very opposite of joy.

This is the challenge of liturgy that we Catholics have yet to address.

Worship must witness to the living God

It is always instructive to see how people (both those who call themselves believers and those who reject belief) refer to the idea of "God".

The good people are the bores; what is nice is what is naughty!

An advert selling chocolate announces that it is so tempting it is sinful - yes, it is a joke, but a joke that only works if we have a vision of God as wanting us to be miserable.

How often have I heard reference to God as "the man upstairs?

The man upstairs (an image from a two-tier world of masters/servants) is watching you: and you reasonably ask what is the minimum you "can get away with".

The image of the man upstairs is incompatible we our belief that God is love - and it is that love we celebrate when we gather.

An earthquake kills thousands, and we refer to it as "an act of God", and now the notion of God equals the extent of our ignorance of plate tectonics.

Indeed, for most people (believers and unbelievers) God is a mean, old bully, and, indeed, a killjoy.

If we do anything in the liturgy that promotes, reinforces, or acquiesces in this false notion of God we become traitors to faith.

Writing to the Romans, Paul trotted out a little well-turned list of attitudes that he wanted to animate their gathering.

It was clearly a list that he had memorised - and wanted others to memorise - and that he had used on many occasions.

I think of it as a kind of ancient liturgical catechism - and the place that joy, rejoicing, and the spreading of joy has within it is significant.

Here it is:

Rejoice in your hope;

Be patient in tribulation;

Be constant in prayer;

Contribute to the needs of the saints;

Practice hospitality;

Bless those who persecute you;

Bless and do not curse them;

Rejoice with those who rejoice;

Weep with those who weep;

Live in harmony with one another;

Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly;

Never be conceited;

Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all; [and]

If possible, so far as you can, live peaceably with all (Rom 12:12-8).

Joy is not icing on the liturgical cake: it should be its abiding flavor.

• Thomas O'Loughlin is a presbyter of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and professor-emeritus of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK).
• First published in La Croix International. Republished with permission.

Pope Francis quotes this judgment approvingly in Gaudete et exsultate, his apostolic exhortation "on the call to holiness in today's world."

He also quotes a less dramatic formulation of the same idea in Lumen gentium, the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: "all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord—each in his or her own way—to that perfect holiness by which the Father himself is perfect."

However one puts it, this is an idea that makes many of us deeply uncomfortable.

We like our saints to be exceptions, the more exotic the better: an elderly Albanian woman in a sari, a wooden statue of a martyr carrying his head in his hand, a thirteenth-century Italian talking to the birds and rolling in the snow to stave off lust.

We are not like that, thank goodness.

We are just ordinary human beings, with ordinary human appetites and shortcomings. We aren't trying to be holy; we're just doing our best.

Or, if not quite our best, then as much as can reasonably be expected.

Holiness should neither scare nor bore us

When we say, "I'm no saint," it's almost never an admission of failure, but instead an insistence on our full humanity, as if saints were somehow either more or less than fully human—eunuchs, maybe, or angels.

This is, according to Francis, both a failure of imagination and a failure of nerve.

Near the beginning of Gaudete et exsultate he writes, "do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy.

"On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self."

And near the end of the exhortation, he makes the point again: "[God] does not want to enter our lives to cripple or diminish them, but to bring them to fulfillment."

If all Christians are called to be saints, no two are called to be saints in quite the same way.

Developing another teaching of the Second Vatican Council, Francis insists, again and again, on the variety of holiness. Continue reading

• Image: Commonweal

Joy is a wonderful word. I prefer it to "happy". Joy is really deep, whereas I think happiness is more fleeting. I think babies are born joyful, but the circumstances of upbringing and society and family change that in us.

Joy encompasses a whole lot of things. You can't be full of joy if you're anxious. Joy is about harmony and peace of mind.

I've had a lot of anguish and pain in my life but now I'm in a really good place. Maybe adversity is part of joy; if you go through something hard, joy is the reward.

My real joy is my spiritual life. I'm a Catholic and that has been pivotal for me. Without that connection, I wouldn't have any joy in anything else.

I'm a convert - I was brought up a Presbyterian - but I became a Catholic when I was 34. It didn't come easily to me, it came after I suffered a real tragedy in my life. I had an abortion, which is a pretty tender subject.

Becoming a Catholic was a very slow progression, but it's been a beautiful journey. That is my centre and all the other joys in my life have come from that.

Finding joy in food started when I was a child. I grew up on a dairy farm at Henley on the Taieri Plains and food was a predominant thing in farm life - growing things, raising animals to eat.

There was a lot of hospitality and we were quite self-sufficient. We had our own hens, our own pigs, and my dad made cheese for a while. Growing food and sharing it has been part of my life ever since.

My dad died when I was 10. We moved off the farm and into the local hotel, where my mum had the restaurant and grew it into a successful business.

Later on I went to study clothing design in Christchurch, but I kept walking past the chefs' block and thinking, "maybe I should be in there instead". Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Radio New Zealand

It's also about Catholics seeking, and not finding, an experience of the holy and transcendent — of God — in their Church.

Without that, who could be surprised when the Pew Center this month found the Church losing adherents faster than any other religion save mainline Protestantism, where numbers have been declining for years?

For decades now, the Catholic hierarchy has declared unworthy those of us who are female, divorced, divorced and remarried, or users of dastardly birth control.

Those of us who are gay, no matter what Ireland just voted, can forget about embrace. Disordered, says the Church.

But constant rejection isn't the only problem.

"Catholics just don't have a vocabulary for transcendence," says a highly devout lawyer friend of mine.

He's so right. Transcendence is not something we hear much about at Mass or read about in the bulletin. It's not where modern Catholicism's emphasis lies, although it's there if we look hard enough.

Beyond Pope Francis' refusal to scold us all is his focus on exactly that: the intimacy and joy of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

In his apostolic exhortation, "The Joy of the Gospel," he wrote the word "joy" 28 times in the first four pages, plus seven "rejoices."

"The quiet joy of (God's) love.''

"The joy brought by the lord."

"The joy which we experience daily, amid the little things of life, as a response to the loving invitation of God."
Here's Pope Francis' very first paragraph:

"The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. These who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness."

Sounds terrific, no? What he's talking about, again, is an "encounter" with Jesus, an actual experience of God, which changes everything. Continue reading

• Margery Eagan, spirituality columnist for Crux, is a writer and commentator on current affairs.

Francis gave his list in an interview with an old acquaintance Pablo Calvo, which formed part of a feature article in the Argentine magazine Viva.

The interview was given to mark the first 500 days of Francis's pontificate.

The 10 tips for happiness as recommended by Pope Francis were:

1. "Live and let live." Everyone should be guided by this principle, he said, which has a similar expression in Rome with the saying, "Move forward and let others do the same".

2. "Be giving of yourself to others." People need to be open and generous toward others, Francis said, because "if you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid."

3. "Proceed calmly" in life with kindness and humility.

4. "A healthy sense of leisure." The pleasures of art, literature and playing together with children have been lost, he said.

5. Sundays should be holidays. Workers should have Sundays off because "Sunday is for family," he said.

6. Find innovative ways to create dignified jobs for young people. "We need to be creative with young people. If they have no opportunities they will get into drugs" and be more vulnerable to suicide, he said.

7. Respect and take care of nature. Environmental degradation "is one of the biggest challenges we have," he said. "I think a question that we're not asking ourselves is: 'Isn't humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?' "

8. Stop being negative. "Needing to talk badly about others indicates low self-esteem. That means, 'I feel so low that instead of picking myself up I have to cut others down'," the Pope said. "Letting go of negative things quickly is healthy."

9. Don't proselytize; respect others' beliefs. "We can inspire others through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses".

10. Work for peace. "We are living in a time of many wars," he said, and "the call for peace must be shouted".

Calvo noted that Francis only mentioned God three times in their 77-minute conversation, twice in reference to protecting nature and once in mentioning a book title.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Register
• Image: Daily Mail

So many of the rich images, words, and themes that will recur at the Easter Vigil are hinted in the day's readings and prayers — the anointing of David with oil, the enlightening of the man born blind in John, and the Letter to the Ephesians' call to "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

Like the paschal exsultet in the middle of the darkness of the Easter Vigil, Laetare Sunday is a bright little burst of light and joy in the midst of Lent.

And, not coincidentally, it coincides with these first uncertain, hesitant bursts of springtime found in European and North American climates at this time of year.

Here in Washington, D.C., where I live, we have had 70-degree days followed by snow in the past week, and very confused crocuses attempting to push their way towards the sun.

The name "Laetare Sunday" comes from the introit text -

"Laetare Jerusalem: et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam"

"Rejoice, O Jerusalem: and come together all you that love her" Continue reading.

Brian Flanagan, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Theology at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

Source: Daily Theology

Image: Marymount University

Interviews with several cardinals this week suggest the pope backs up those words with his personal example.

As he approaches the one-year anniversary of his election, it's becoming steadily clearer that Francis is the most laid-back pontiff in recent memory, and perhaps of all time.

Examples abound.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is a member of a Vatican council that oversees the Synod of Bishops, a summit of Catholic prelates from around the world.

The council meets every so often in a building a few blocks from St. Peter's Basilica, and the practice has been that it passes conclusions to a papal aide without getting face time with the boss.

In October, however, Francis decided to walk down the Via della Conciliazione, the broad Roman street leading away from the basilica, to join one of their meetings. Continue reading.

Source: Boston Globe

Image: ABC News

Naturally, she has a thing or two to say about longevity and living well.

Born in 1907 in Verona, Italy, Candida joined the Camillian nuns more than 80 years ago and has spent her life traveling from city to city and working as a nurse.

The centenarian celebrated her birthday with Mass at Casa Santa Marta, followed by a meeting with Pope Francis and an interview with journalists eager to know the sister's secret to such a long life.

Her tips were simple but powerful:

Listen to God

Candida's recipe for a long and happy life included "listening to the voice of Christ and being meek as regards his will.

"Throughout my life I have always thought: wherever the Lord puts me, that is the right place for me."

Giving thanks to God was also of key importance to the sister, ANSA reported.

"God does it all," Candida said. "I merely give Him thanks." Continue reading.

Source: Huffington Post

Image: Gabbiano News

The day before my ordination last summer I was giving my four-year-old nephew a lift in the car.

I wanted to test him, so I said: "Tristan, what's happening tomorrow?" He said: "Uncle Frankie, you're being ordained."

I was surprised. I thought: four years old and he knows terminology like that. This kid's a genius.

Then I said: "And Tristan what happens when I am ordained?" He said: "You become a priest."

I thought: that's two out of two. I need to go for the third and final question, so I said: "And Tristan, what do priests do?" And he said: "They wear dresses!"

I've put the cause for his canonisation on hold, but it certainly made me laugh out loud! Continue reading.

Frankie Mulgrew is a priest for the Salford Diocese, England. He has been a professional comedian, and recently edited a book, Does God LOL?, published by Darton, Longman and Todd.

Source: Catholic Herald

Image: Author's own

"In the history of the Church there have been two classes of Christians: Christians of words — those who say, 'Lord, Lord, Lord' — and Christians of action, in truth," he said.

Pope Francis was commenting on the passage from the Gospel of Matthew on houses built on rock or sand at a morning Mass celebrated in Casa Santa Marta.

Those Christians who are all talk, he said, fall into two categories.

He defined one group as "gnostics" who, instead of loving the Rock that is Christ, "love pretty words" and follow a "liquid Christianity".

These superficial "Christians of words" are "floating on the surface of the Christian life", he said. "And this has happening and is happening today: being Christian without Christ."

He defined the other group as "pelagians", who "believe that the Christian life must be taken so seriously that they end up confusing solidity and firmness with rigidity. They are rigid! They think that being Christian means being in perpetual mourning."

This group, he said, "stare at their feet" and do not know how to enjoy the life that Jesus gives us because they do not know how to talk to Jesus.

There are "so many" of these Christians, the Pope said, but "they are not Christians, they disguise themselves as Christians".

"They do not know what the Lord is, they do not know what the rock is, do not have the freedom of Christians. To put it simply 'they have no joy'."

"They are the slaves of superficiality … and the slaves of rigidity, they are not free. The Holy Spirit has no place in their lives. It is the Spirit who gives us the freedom!

"Today, the Lord calls us to build our Christian life on Him, the rock, the One who gives us freedom, the One who sends us the Spirit, that keeps us going with joy, on his journey, following his proposals. "

Sources:

Catholic News Service

Vatican Radio

Image: Catholic Herald

Joy, he said, is a "pilgrim virtue" that moves Christians to journey out into the world, preaching the Gospel and proclaiming Christ.

But when Christians have more of a sourpuss than a face that communicates the joy of being loved by God, they harm the witness of the Church.

Continue reading