VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - # 019   
   DATE 27-01-2015   
      
   Summary:   
   - Pope's Message for Lent 2015: "Make your hearts firm"   
   - Indifference, key theme of the Pope's Message for Lent 2015   
   - Holy Father's calendar for February to April 2015   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    Pope's Message for Lent 2015: "Make your hearts firm"   
    Vatican City, 27 January 2015 (VIS) - The following is the full text of the   
   Holy Father Francis' message for Lent 2015, entitled "Make your hearts firm".   
   The document was signed in the Vatican on 4 October 2014, the festivity of St.   
   Francis of Assisi.   
    "Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each communities and   
   every believer. Above all it is a 'time of grace'. God does not ask of us   
   anything that he himself has not first given us. "We love because he first has   
   loved us'. He is not aloof from us. Each one of us has a place in his heart.   
   He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away   
   from him. He is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be   
   indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and   
   comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we   
   are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they   
   endure. Our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and   
   comfortable, I do not think about those less well off. Today, this selfish   
   attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that   
   we can speak of a globalisation of indifference. It is a problem which we, as   
   Christians, need to confront.   
    When the people of God are converted to his love, they find answers to the   
   questions that history continually raises. One of the most urgent challenges   
   which I would like to address in this Message is precisely the globalisation   
   of indifference.   
    Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation   
   for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice   
   of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.   
    God is not indifferent to our world; he so loves it that he gave his Son for   
   our salvation. In the Incarnation, in the earthly life, death, and   
   resurrection of the Son of God, the gate between God and man, between heaven   
   and earth, opens once for all. The Church is like the hand holding open this   
   gate, thanks to her proclamation of God's word, her celebration of the   
   sacraments and her witness of the faith which works through love. But the   
   world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes   
   into the world and the world comes to him. Hence the hand, which is the   
   Church, must never be surprised if it is rejected, crushed and wounded.   
    God's people, then, need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent   
   and withdraw into ourselves. To further this renewal, I would like to propose   
   for our reflection three biblical texts.   
    1. 'If one member suffers, all suffer together' - The Church   
    The love of God breaks through that fatal withdrawal into ourselves which is   
   indifference. The Church offers us this love of God by her teaching and   
   especially by her witness. But we can only bear witness to what we ourselves   
   have experienced. Christians are those who let God clothe them with goodness   
   and mercy, with Christ, so as to become, like Christ, servants of God and   
   others. This is clearly seen in the liturgy of Holy Thursday, with its rite of   
   the washing of feet. Peter did not want Jesus to wash his feet, but he came to   
   realise that Jesus does not wish to be just an example of how we should wash   
   one another's feet. Only those who have first allowed Jesus to wash their own   
   feet can then offer this service to others. Only they have 'a part' with him   
   and thus can serve others.   
    Lent is a favourable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may   
   become more like him. This happens whenever we hear the word of God and   
   receive the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. There we become what we   
   receive: the Body of Christ. In this body there is no room for the   
   indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts. For whoever is of   
   Christ, belongs to one body, and in him we cannot be indifferent to one   
   another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is   
   honoured, all the parts share its joy'.   
    The Church is the communio sanctorum not only because of her saints, but also   
   because she is a communion in holy things: the love of God revealed to us in   
   Christ and all his gifts. Among these gifts there is also the response of   
   those who let themselves be touched by this love. In this communion of saints,   
   in this sharing in holy things, no one possesses anything alone, but shares   
   everything with others. And since we are united in God, we can do something   
   for those who are far distant, those whom we could never reach on our own,   
   because with them and for them, we ask God that all of us may be open to his   
   plan of salvation.   
    2. 'Where is your brother?' - Parishes and Communities   
    All that we have been saying about the universal Church must now be applied   
   to the life of our parishes and communities. Do these ecclesial structures   
   enable us to experience being part of one body? A body which receives and   
   shares what God wishes to give? A body which acknowledges and cares for its   
   weakest, poorest and most insignificant members? Or do we take refuge in a   
   universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the   
   Lazarus sitting before our closed doors?   
    In order to receive what God gives us and to make it bear abundant fruit, we   
   need to press beyond the boundaries of the visible Church in two ways.   
    In the first place, by uniting ourselves in prayer with the Church in heaven.   
   The prayers of the Church on earth establish a communion of mutual service and   
   goodness which reaches up into the sight of God. Together with the saints who   
   have found their fulfilment in God, we form part of that communion in which   
   indifference is conquered by love. The Church in heaven is not triumphant   
   because she has turned her back on the sufferings of the world and rejoices in   
   splendid isolation. Rather, the saints already joyfully contemplate the fact   
   that, through Jesus' death and resurrection, they have triumphed once and for   
   all over indifference, hardness of heart and hatred. Until this victory of   
   love penetrates the whole world, the saints continue to accompany us on our   
   pilgrim way. Saint Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church, expressed her   
   conviction that the joy in heaven for the victory of crucified love remains   
   incomplete as long as there is still a single man or woman on earth who   
   suffers and cries out in pain: 'I trust fully that I shall not remain idle in   
   heaven; my desire is to continue to work for the Church and for souls'.   
    We share in the merits and joy of the saints, even as they share in our   
   struggles and our longing for peace and reconciliation. Their joy in the   
   victory of the Risen Christ gives us strength as we strive to overcome our   
   indifference and hardness of heart.   
    In the second place, every Christian community is called to go out of itself   
   and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part,   
   especially with the poor and those who are far away. The Church is missionary   
   by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and   
   people.   
    Her mission is to bear patient witness to the One who desires to draw all   
   creation and every man and woman to the Father. Her mission is to bring to all   
   a love which cannot remain silent. The Church follows Jesus Christ along the   
   paths that lead to every man and woman, to the very ends of the earth. In each   
   of our neighbours, then, we must see a brother or sister for whom Christ died   
   and rose again. What we ourselves have received, we have received for them as   
   well. Similarly, all that our brothers and sisters possess is a gift for the   
   Church and for all humanity.   
    Dear brothers and sisters, how greatly I desire that all those places where   
   the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become   
   islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!   
    3. 'Make your hearts firm!' - Individual Christians   
    As individuals too, we have are tempted by indifference. Flooded with news   
   reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete   
   inability to help. What can we do to avoid being caught up in this spiral of   
   distress and powerlessness?   
    First, we can pray in communion with the Church on earth and in heaven. Let   
   us not underestimate the power of so many voices united in prayer! The '24   
   Hours for the Lord' initiative, which I hope will be observed on 13-14 March   
   throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level, is meant to be a sign of   
   this need for prayer.   
    Second, we can help by acts of charity, reaching out to both those near and   
   far through the Church's many charitable organisations. Lent is a favourable   
   time for showing this concern for others by small yet concrete signs of our   
   belonging to the one human family.   
    Third, the suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need   
   reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my   
   brothers and sisters. If we humbly implore God's grace and accept our own   
   limitations, we will trust in the infinite possibilities which God's love   
   holds out to us. We will also be able to resist the diabolical temptation of   
   thinking that by our own efforts we can save the world and ourselves.   
    As a way of overcoming indifference and our pretensions to self-sufficiency,   
   I would invite everyone to live this Lent as an opportunity for engaging in   
   what Benedict XVI called a formation of the heart. A merciful heart does not   
   mean a weak heart. Anyone who wishes to be merciful must have a strong and   
   steadfast heart, closed to the tempter but open to God. A heart which lets   
   itself be pierced by the Spirit so as to bring love along the roads that lead   
   to our brothers and sisters. And, ultimately, a poor heart, one which realises   
   its own poverty and gives itself freely for others.   
    During this Lent, then, brothers and sisters, let us all ask the Lord: 'Fac   
   cor nostrum secundum cor tuum': Make our hearts like yours (Litany of the   
   Sacred Heart of Jesus). In this way we will receive a heart which is firm and   
   merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or   
   prey to the globalisation of indifference.   
      
   --- MPost/386 v1.21   
    * Origin: Sursum Corda! BBS=Huntsville AL=bbs.sursum-corda.com (1:396/45)