Pope Francis advocated “unlimited availability” to God, during the general audience he presided over in the Paul VI Hall on February 5, 2025. Suffering from another cold, the Pope delegated the reading of his catechesis to a collaborator, although at the end of the meeting he made an appeal for countries at war.
Continuing his catechesis on the theme of hope, the Holy Father meditated on the story of Mary, pregnant with Jesus, visiting her cousin Elizabeth. He emphasized the young woman’s faith “in the God of the impossible.”
The Pope emphasized that Mary “does not choose to protect herself from the world, does not fear the dangers and judgments of others, but goes out to meet others.”
He then quoted Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar to assure us that “the only act by which man can correspond to the God who reveals himself is that of unlimited availability.”
“Mary does not speak of herself, but of God,” Francis also noted in this catechesis, insisting on the fidelity of God who forever pours out “an uninterrupted flow of merciful love from generation to generation.”
The Argentine pontiff, who let his collaborator also read his greetings to the pilgrims in various languages, took the floor again to summarize his catechesis in Spanish. At the end of the audience, he also made an appeal, in a hoarse voice, for countries suffering from war, citing Ukraine, Israel, Jordan, as well as “the refugees of Palestine.”
The mention of Jordan comes two days after Monday’s Vatican summit on children’s rights, in which Queen Rania took part alongside the Pope. The country is a relative pole of stability in the Middle East, but Donald Trump’s plan to transfer some of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip there could destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom.
King Abdullah II is due to hold talks on this subject with the US President, just as Trump has shocked the world with his proposal that the United States take over the Gaza Strip.
And today we celebrate...