2010-10-18 16:13:16

Pope reflects on faith in lives of six new saints


(October 18, 2010) Prayer must be the expression of faith in the goodness of God, otherwise it is not true prayer said Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday. He made the reflection at a canonization Mass in St. Peter's Square in which he proclaimed six new saints for the Catholic Church, including Australia’s first saint. They are Stanislaw Soltys Kazimierczyk of Poland, Bro. André Bessette of Canada, Cándida María de Jesús Cipitria y Barriola of Spain, Mary of the Cross MacKillop of Australia and two Italians, Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla Varano. In his homily, the Holy Father reflected on Sunday’s Gospel parable of the unjust judge and the importunate widow, where Jesus speaks of the necessity of praying always, without tiring. "Sometimes we grow tired of prayer, we have the impression that prayer is not very useful for life, that it is not very effective," the Pope said. "Thus, we are tempted to dedicate ourselves to activity, to employ every human method to accomplish our goals, and we do not approach God. But Jesus says that we must pray always, and he does this through a specific parable" – that of the unjust judge and the importunate widow. “If a dishonest judge in the end allows himself to be convinced by the entreaties of a widow, how much more will God, who is good, listen to those who pray. God in fact is generosity in person, he is merciful, and so he is always disposed to listen to prayers. In this regard, the Holy Father offered brief reflections on each of the new saints, speaking in several of the saints' native languages. At the end, he called the faithful to "give thanks to the Lord for the gift of holiness, which shines in the Church and today illumines the faces of these brothers and sisters of ours." At the end of the Canonization Mass Pope Benedict recited the midday ‘angelus’ Marian prayer, during which he offered brief reflections about the sanctity of the four women and two men he declared as saints.







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