{"id":239931,"date":"2019-05-31T18:54:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T15:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=239931"},"modified":"2019-06-04T11:11:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T08:11:45","slug":"pope-francis-the-our-father-is-a-prayer-that-leaves-us-troubled-and-crying-out-in-protest-against-the-famine-of-love-in-our-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/pope-francis-the-our-father-is-a-prayer-that-leaves-us-troubled-and-crying-out-in-protest-against-the-famine-of-love-in-our-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis: The ‘Our Father’ is a prayer that leaves us troubled and crying out in protest against the famine of love in our time"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the first day of his 3-day visit to Romania, Pope Francis prayed the ‘Our Father’ in Bucharest’s Orthodox People’s Salvation Cathedral and addressed the congregation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is the full text of his address:<\/p>\n

\n

Your Beatitude, Dear Brother,
\nDear Brothers and Sisters,<\/p>\n

I am grateful and moved to be in this holy temple that brings us together in unity.\u00a0 Jesus called the brothers Andrew and Peter to leave their nets and to become together fishers of men (cf.Mk\u00a0<\/i>1:16-17).\u00a0 The calling of one brother was incomplete without that of the other.\u00a0 Today we wish to raise, side by side, from the heart of this country, the Lord\u2019s Prayer.<\/p>\n

That prayer contains the sure promise made by Jesus to his disciples: \u201cI will not leave you orphaned\u201d (Jn\u00a0<\/i>14:18), and gives us the confidence to receive and welcome the gift of our brothers and sisters.\u00a0 I would like therefore to share some thoughts in preparation for this prayer, which I will recite for our journey of fraternity and for the intention that Romania may always be a home for everyone, a land of encounter, a garden where reconciliation and communion flourish.<\/p>\n

Each time we say \u201cOur Father\u201d, we state that the word\u00a0Father<\/i>\u00a0cannot stand on its own, apart from\u00a0Our<\/i>.\u00a0 United in Jesus\u2019 prayer, we are also united to his experience of love and intercession, which leads us to say: \u201cMy Father and your Father, my God and your God\u201d (cf.\u00a0Jn<\/i>20:17).\u00a0 We are invited to make\u00a0my<\/i>\u00a0become\u00a0our<\/i>,\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0our\u00a0<\/i>to become a prayer.\u00a0 Help us, Father, to take our brother or sister\u2019s lives seriously, to make their history our history.\u00a0 Help us to not judge our brother or sister for their actions and their limitations, but to welcome them before all else as your son or daughter.\u00a0 Help us to overcome the temptation to act like the elder brother, who was so concerned with himself that he forgot the gift of the other person (cf.\u00a0Lk<\/i>\u00a015:25-32).<\/p>\n

To you, Father,\u00a0who art in heaven<\/i>, a heaven that embraces all and in which you make the sun rise on the good and the evil, on the just and the unjust (cf.\u00a0Mt<\/i>\u00a05:45), we implore the peace and harmony that here on earth we have failed to preserve.\u00a0 We ask this through the intercession of all those brothers and sisters in faith who dwell with you in heaven after having believed, loved and suffered greatly, even in our own days, simply for the fact that they were Christians.<\/p>\n

Together with them, we wish to\u00a0hallow your name<\/i>, placing it at the heart of all we do.\u00a0 May your name, Lord, and not ours, be the one that moves and awakens in us the exercise of charity.\u00a0 How many times, in prayer, do we limit ourselves to asking for gifts and listing requests, forgetting that the first thing we should do is praise your name, adore you, and then go on to acknowledge, in the brother or sister whom you have placed at our side, a living image of you.\u00a0 In the midst of all those passing things in which we are so caught up, help us, Father, to seek what truly lasts: your presence and that of our brother or sister.<\/p>\n

We wait in expectation for\u00a0your kingdom\u00a0<\/i>to\u00a0come<\/i>.\u00a0 We ask for it and we long for it, because we see that the workings of this world do not favour it, organized as they are around money, personal interests and power.\u00a0 Sunken as we are in an increasingly frenetic consumerism that entices us with glittering but fleeting realities, we ask you to help us, Father, to believe in what we pray for: to give up the comfortable security of power, the deceptive allure of worldliness, the vain presumption of our own self-sufficiency, the hypocrisy of cultivating appearances.\u00a0 In this way, we will not lose sight of that Kingdom to which you summon us.<\/p>\n

Thy will be done<\/i>, not our will.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>\u201cGod\u2019s will is that all be saved\u201d (SAINT JOHN CASSIAN,\u00a0Spiritual Conferences<\/i>, IX, 20).\u00a0 We need to broaden our horizons, Father, lest we place our own limits on your merciful, salvific will that wishes to embrace everyone.\u00a0 Help us, Father, by sending to us, as at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, source of courage and joy, to impel us to preach the good news of the Gospel beyond the confines of the communities to which we belong, our languages, our cultures and our nations.<\/p>\n

Each day we need him,\u00a0our daily bread<\/i>.\u00a0 He is the\u00a0bread<\/i>\u00a0of life<\/i>\u00a0(cf.\u00a0Jn<\/i>\u00a06:35.48) that makes us realize that we are beloved sons and daughters, and makes us feel no longer isolated and orphaned.\u00a0 He is the\u00a0bread of service<\/i>, broken to serve us, and asking us in turn to serve one another (cf.\u00a0Jn<\/i>\u00a013:14).<\/p>\n

Father, as you give us our daily bread, strengthen us to reach out and serve our brothers and sisters.\u00a0 And as we ask you for our daily bread, we ask also for\u00a0the bread of memory<\/i>, the grace to nurture the shared roots of our Christian identity, so indispensable in an age when humanity, and the young in particular, tend to feel rootless amid the uncertainties of life, and incapable of building their lives on a solid foundation.\u00a0 The bread that we ask begins with a seed, slowly grows into an ear of grain, is then harvested and is finally brought to our table.<\/p>\n

May it inspire us to be patient\u00a0cultivators of communion<\/i>, tireless in sowing seeds of unity, encouraging goodness, working constantly at the side of our brothers and sisters.\u00a0 Without suspicion or reserve, without pressuring or demanding uniformity, in the fraternal joy of a reconciled diversity.<\/p>\n

The bread we ask today is also the bread of which so many people today are lacking, while a few have more than enough.\u00a0 The\u00a0Our Father<\/i>\u00a0is a prayer that leaves us troubled and crying out in protest against the\u00a0famine of love<\/i>\u00a0in our time, against the individualism and indifference that profane your name, Father.\u00a0 Help us to hunger to give freely of ourselves.<\/p>\n

Remind us, whenever we pray, that life is not about keeping ourselves comfortable but about letting ourselves be broken; not about accumulating but about sharing; not about eating to our heart\u2019s content but about feeding others.\u00a0 Prosperity is only prosperity if it embraces everyone.<\/p>\n

Each time we pray, we ask that our\u00a0trespasses<\/i>, our debts, be\u00a0forgiven<\/i>.\u00a0 This takes courage, for it means that we must forgive the trespasses of others, the debts that others have incurred in our regard.\u00a0 We need to find the strength to forgive our brother or sister from the heart (cf.\u00a0Mt<\/i>18:35), even as you, Father, forgive our trespasses: to leave the past behind us and, together, to embrace the present.\u00a0 Help us, Father, not to yield to fear, not to see openness as a threat, to find the strength to forgive each other and move on, and the courage not to settle for a quiet life but to keep seeking, with transparency and sincerity, the face of our brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

And when the\u00a0evil<\/i>\u00a0that lurks at the doorway of our heart (cf.\u00a0Gen<\/i>\u00a04:7) makes us want to close in on ourselves; when we feel more strongly the\u00a0temptation<\/i>\u00a0to turn our back on others, help us again, Father, for the essence of sin is withdrawal from you and from our neighbour.\u00a0 Help us to recognize in every one of our brothers and sisters a source of support on our common journey to you.\u00a0 Inspire in us the courage to say together:\u00a0Our Father<\/i>. \u00a0Amen.<\/p>\n

\n

Translated by Vatican News<\/p>\n

Photography courtesy of\u00a0Ziarul Lumina \/ Mihnea P\u0103duraru<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the first day of his 3-day visit to Romania, Pope Francis prayed the ‘Our Father’ in Bucharest’s Orthodox People’s Salvation Cathedral and addressed the congregation. Here is the full text of his address: Your Beatitude, Dear Brother, Dear Brothers and Sisters, I am grateful and moved to be in this holy temple that brings…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":240052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18771],"tags":[16434,19612,19611,55,244,246],"class_list":["post-239931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spirituality-en","tag-catedrala-nationala-en","tag-our-father","tag-peoples-salvation-cathedral","tag-pope-francis","tag-prayer","tag-romania"],"better_featured_image":{"id":240052,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":2500,"height":1664,"file":"2019\/05\/MSP_6071-1.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"MSP_6071-1-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/MSP_6071-1-360x360.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"MSP_6071-1-890x592.jpg","width":890,"height":592,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/MSP_6071-1-890x592.jpg"},"large":{"file":"MSP_6071-1-1024x682.jpg","width":1024,"height":682,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/MSP_6071-1-1024x682.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"6.3","credit":"Ziarul Lumina al Patriarhiei Romane","camera":"NIKON D4S","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1559322979","copyright":"Ziarul Lumina, 2015. Toate drepturile rezervate.","focal_length":"150","iso":"3200","shutter_speed":"0.003125","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":239931,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/MSP_6071-1.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239931\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=239931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239931\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240052\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=239931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=239931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=239931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}