Fasting makes sense if it really chips away at our security and, as a consequence, benefits someone else, if it helps us cultivate the style of the good Samaritan, who bent down to his brother in need and took care of him.
Interpretation
Fasting can promote empathy and altruism by encouraging selflessness and care for others.
Pope Francis emphasizes that fasting should not only be a personal sacrifice but also a means to develop compassion and serve those in need. By embracing this spiritual practice, individuals are called to emulate the example of the Good Samaritan, who selflessly cared for others, thus fostering a deeper connection to humanity and social responsibility.
In practice
In a sermon about kindness during Lent, this quote can inspire congregants to consider the needs of others.
We are a church of sinners but we must not be afraid of holiness. Do not be afraid to aim for holiness and turn yourselves over to the love of God. Holiness does not mean performing extraordinary things but carrying out daily things in an extraordinary way that is with love, joy and faith.
I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.
No one must say that they cannot be close to the poor because their own lifestyle demands more attention to other areas. This is an excuse commonly heard in academic, business or professional, and even ecclesial circles. While it is quite true that the essential vocation and mission of the lay faithful is to strive that earthly realities and all human activity may be transformed by the Gospel, none of us can think we are exempt from concern for the poor and for social justice
We face so many challenges in life: poverty, distress, humiliation, the struggle for justice, persecutions, the difficulty of daily conversion, the effort to remain faithful to our call to holiness, and many others. But if we open the door to Jesus and allow him to be part of our lives, if we share our joys and sorrows with him, then we will experience the peace and joy that only God, who is infinite love, can give.
More and more people work on Sundays as a consequence of the competitiveness imposed by a consumer society.
This Christmas may we be consistent in living the Gospel, welcoming Jesus into the centre of our lives.
A lot of leftists think it is soccer's fault that people don't think, while most rightists are convinced that soccer is a proof that people think with their feet.
Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
He believed in God even if he was doubtful of men's claims to know God's mind. But that a God unable to forgive was no God at all.
I'm happy to respect authority when it's genuine authority, based on moral or intellectual or even technical superiority. I'm eager to follow a hero if we can find one. But I tend to resist or evade any kind of authority based merely on the power to coerce. Government, for example. The Army tried to train us to salute the uniform, not the man. Failed. I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore.
We do not have a money problem in America. We have a values and priorities problem.
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