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Rome, Italy, Apr 13, 2017 / 11:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis spent Holy Thursday washing the feet of inmates, telling them in a brief homily that God is someone who loves until the end. He urged them to imitate this love even while in prison.“Having loved his people who were in the world, he loved them to the end. God loves like this, to the end,” the Pope said April 13. “He gives life to each one of us and he boasts of this because he has love, and to love until the end isn’t easy.”“We are all sinners and we all have limits and defects,” he said. While we all know how to love, “we are not like God who loves without looking at the consequences.”He encouraged the inmates to imitate the love Jesus showed in washing the feet of his disciples, saying they didn’t need to get up and take their shoes off, but “if you can act as a help, do a service, here in prison, do it. Because this is love, it’s like washing ...
By Cindy WoodenVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A French biblical scholar not onlywrote the meditations to guide Pope Francis' 2017 celebration of the Via Crucisat Rome's Colosseum, she also designed her own set of Bible-based Stations ofthe Cross.Pope Francis asked Anne-Marie Pelletier to share herreflections with the worldwide audience that follows the stations on the nightof Good Friday. She is the first wife, mother and grandmother to authormeditations for the papal service.In the past, writers chosen by the popes have used either thetraditional 14 stations followed by pilgrims walking the Via Dolorosa inJerusalem or the 14 biblical stations used by St. John Paul II in 1991. The maindifference is that Jesus falling three times and Veronica wiping the face ofJesus are in the traditional devotion, but not in any of the Gospels.Pelletier's stations are a variation on St. John Paul'sScriptural Stations of the Cross. She starts with Jesus being condemned todeath, rather than with Jesus in the ...
IMAGE: CNS/Paul HaringBy Carol GlatzVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Always preach the whole truth ofthe Gospel with humility and respect and never be afraid to offer that truth just"one sip at a time," Pope Francis told the world's priests.The Gospel is truth, "brimming with joy and mercy.We should never attempt to separate these three graces of the Gospel: itstruth, which is non-negotiable; its mercy, which is unconditional and offeredto all sinners; and its joy, which is personal and open to everyone," hesaid April 13 during the chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.Presiding over the first of two Holy Thursday liturgies,Pope Francis blessed the oils that will be used in the sacraments of baptism,confirmation, ordination and the anointing of the sick.With Holy Thursday commemorating the day Jesus shared his priesthoodwith the apostles, Pope Francis led the more than 1,500 priests, bishops andcardinals in a renewal of their priestly vows and dedicated his homily to theimportance of preaching ...
By Junno Arocho EstevesVATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a gesture of service toward marginalized people, Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 inmates, including three womenand a man who is converting from Islam to Catholicism.Although in Jesus' time, washing the feet of one's guestswas performed by slaves, Jesus "reverses" this role, the pope said duringthe Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper April 13 at a prison 45 miles from Rome."He came into this world to serve, to serve us. He cameto make himself a slave for us, to give his life for us and to love us to theend," he said. Pope Francis made his way by car to a penitentiary in Paliano, which houses 70 men and women who testified as a witness for the stateagainst associates or accomplices.To protect the safety and security of theprisoners, only a live audio feed of the pope's homily was provided by VaticanRadio as well as selectedphotographs released by the Vatican.The Vatican said April 13 that among the 12 inmates who participatedin t...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A tiny, ice-encrusted ocean world orbiting Saturn is now a hotter-than-ever candidate for potential life....
BARTELLA, Iraq (AP) -- A boy and a woman are delivered to the gates of the clinic by an Iraqi ambulance, bandaged and in pain. They arrive without names, ages and with only the sketchiest details of what had happened to them....
MIAMI (AP) -- A quarter-century after he vanished on the eve of a major drug indictment, the last of Miami's fabled "cocaine cowboys" was in custody Thursday, nabbed on a suburban bike ride with his wife near Disney World....
PHOENIX (AP) -- Mexican authorities have arrested the man accused of shooting and killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose 2010 death exposed a bungled gun-tracking operation by the federal government....
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) -- Four young men found dead in a park from injuries inflicted by a sharp-edged object were killed in a way that is consistent with the methods of the MS-13 street gang, according to police, who declared war against gang violence in the suburbs of Long Island....
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis washed the feet of a dozen inmates at a maximum security prison on Holy Thursday in a pre-Easter ritual meant to show his willingness to serve society's most marginal and give them hope. Francis urged the prisoners to help one another out and similarly "be the servant of others."...