Pope Francis is urging Catholics to slow their lives down, warning that the fast-paced contemporary world is destroying the time families spend together along with fuelling emptiness and isolation.
During an Ash Wednesday homily in a Mass to mark the beginning of Lent, Francis urged people to “pause, see and return” in order to combat the “demons” of distrust, apathy and resignation which he says “deaden and paralyse” souls.
The 81-year-old Jesuit Pope reeled off a list of areas where people needed to “pause”, saying the many temptations posed by the fast-changing circumstances in peoples lives sows distrust.
“Pause from this compulsion to a fast-paced life that scatters, divides and ultimately destroys time with family, with friends, with children, with grandparents, and time as a gift,” he said.
“Refrain from the need to show off and be seen by all, to continually appear on the ‘noticeboard’ that makes us forget the value of intimacy and recollection.”
Before the Mass, Francis led the traditional procession from the Church of Sant’Anselmo on Rome’s Aventine Hill, the headquarters of the Benedictine order, to the 5th century Basilica of Santa Sabina.
The basilica is the mother church of the Dominican order and during Wednesday’s liturgy Dominican friars dressed in their black and white habits sat in choir stalls while cardinals were placed in a semi-circle either side of the Pope.
Francis urged the congregation, which included ambassadors to the Holy See, pilgrims and Roman residents, to avoid “the emptiness of everything that is instantaneous, momentary and fleeting.”
Calling on them to remember the “fruitful and creative power of silence,” he urged people to re-connect with their roots and avoid “sterile and unproductive thoughts that arise from isolation and self-pity.”
After his homily the Pope placed ashes on his fellow cardinals, a penitential ritual meant to remind people of Genesis 3:19: “for dust you are and to dust you shall return.”
On Wednesday, Francis urged Catholics to “see” the elderly, sick and young people whom he described as “living shoots of love and life.”
The Pope, who has made God’s mercy the major theme of his papacy, also said this included “the remorseful faces of so many who try to repair their errors and mistakes, and who from their misfortune and suffering fight to transform their situations and move forward.”
Francis concluded his homily by urging Catholics to “return without fear, to experience the healing and reconciling tenderness of God. Let the Lord heal the wounds of sin.”
On Sunday, the Pope and senior members of the Roman Curia will leave Rome for the customary Lenten retreat which ends on the 23 February.
PIC: A cross is marked on the forehead of a woman during Ash Wednesday Mass Feb. 14 ©CNS
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