Pope Francis today offered modern Christians six new beatitudes to encourage and motivate them.
At the end of an ecumenical trip to Sweden and on the feast of All Saints, the Pope described the new situations that require energy and faith for today’s Christians. Of those who practise them he said: "Surely they will receive from Him their merited reward."
The list of new beatitudes are:
- "Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart.
- "Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalised and show them their closeness.
- "Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him.
- "Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home.
- "Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others.
- "Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians."
The Pope was speaking during a service in Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and to build unity with the Lutheran church.
Registered Catholics in the Scandinavian country number about 115,000, just over 1 per cent of the population. But with recent waves of immigration, especially from Chaldean Catholic communities in Iraq, local church officials believe the number of Catholics is double the reported figure.
Reflecting the multicultural makeup of the Catholic Church in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia, the prayer intentions at Mass were read in Spanish, Arabic, English, German and Polish, as well as in Swedish.
The Beatitudes are eight blessings recounted by Christ in the Gospels during the Sermon on the Mount.
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