Concluding the general audience today, Pope Francis spoke to Polish pilgrims with words of their beloved John Paul II.
He noted Friday’s solemnity of All Saints, and the celebration of All Souls Day on Saturday.
Francis referred to John Paul II’s reflection that these days “invite us to look to heaven, the goal of our earthly pilgrimage. The festive community of saints awaits us there. There we will meet our dear departed’ for whom we now raise our prayer.”
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Francis invited us to live the “mystery of the communion of saints” with the “hope that springs from the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
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Why you’re part of the Communion of Saints even before you reach Heaven
His general audience address continued on the theme of the Acts of the Apostles, as he reflected on three events that occurred during St. Paul’s stay in Philippi
1) the evangelization and baptism of Lydia and her family; 2) the arrest he experiences, along with Silas, after exorcising a slave exploited by his masters; and 3) the conversion and baptism of his jailer and his family.
Read a Vatican translation of his reflection on the import of these events here, including how “Here we have the testimony of the arrival of Christianity in Europe: the beginning of a process of inculturation that continues to this day. It entered via Macedonia.”
And today we celebrate...