3 minute read
Church
VATICAN CITY • During the month of November, Pope Francis is asking people to pray for children who are suffering because of poverty, war and exploitation. “Let us pray for children who are suffering, especially for those who are homeless, orphans and victims of war. May they be guaranteed access to education, and may they have the opportunity to experience family affection,” the Pope said in a video released Oct. 31.
In the video message released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, the Pope explained his November prayer intention: “For children who suffer.” “An abandoned child is our fault,” the Pope said in the message. “Each marginalized child, abandoned by his or her family, without schooling, without health care, is a cry! A cry that rises up to God and shames the system that we adults have built,” he insisted.
Pope Francis noted that there are millions of boys and girls around the world living “in conditions very similar to slavery.”
ST. FRANCIS INSPIRES CHURCH TO MIRROR HIS FAITH IN CHRIST, POPE SAYS
VATICAN CITY • St. Francis of Assisi is known for loving and celebrating creation and for being a man of peace and poverty, Pope Francis said.
“When I chose to call myself Francis, I knew I was referring to a saint who is very popular, but also very misunderstood,” he told members of the Coordinating Committee for the Franciscan Eighth Centenary. Very often people do not understand the “root” and “source” of everything the saint loved and did, which was Jesus Christ, the Pope said. St. Francis “is one in love with Jesus Christ and, who in order to follow him, is not afraid to make a fool of himself but goes forward. The source of his whole experience is faith.”
Pope Francis spoke about the saint Oct.
St. Francis of Assisi is depicted in this detail from a fresco in the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, in this 2013 file photo. CNS photo/Octavio Duran 31 during an audience at the Vatican with members of the committee in charge of coordinating the preparation and celebration of a series of anniversaries of important events in the final years of St. Francis’ life. The events commemorate the 800th anniversaries of: the Rule of St. Francis and Christmas at Greccio (2023); the stigmata (2024); the “Canticle of the Creatures” (2025); and “the Easter of Francis” (2026), according to a press release from the ministers general of the different men’s orders within the “Franciscan Family.”
VATICAN ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR CHRISTMAS TREE, NATIVITY SCENE, STAMPS
VATICAN CITY • The Nativity scene that will sit under a 98-feet-tall silver fir tree in the middle of St. Peter’s Square this year will feature 19 life-sized figures carved in cedar by artisans in the northeastern Italian town of Sutrio. The tree comes from Rosello, a village of only 182 residents, in Italy’s central Abruzzo region, said a news release issued Oct. 28 by the office governing Vatican City State.
The decorations on the tree are being made by young adults at a residential psychiatric facility in Rosello. The tree will be lighted, and the traditional Nativity scene unveiled Dec. 3, the office said. The display will remain up until after the feast of the Baptism of the Lord Jan. 8. The cedar for the Nativity scene figures, the Vatican said, came from trees selectively cut by gardeners to improve the health of other trees in several public and private gardens. None of the trees were cut specifically for the sculptures. The Holy Family, the ox and donkey and an angel will be under an arched structure made of larch. The other figures – including the Three Kings, the shepherdess, a carpenter, a family and a “Cramar,” or local wandering salesman – will be on the surrounding platform or ramps leading to it. The day before the office announced the plans for St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican’s Philatelic Office published a notice about the Vatican’s 2022 Christmas stamps, which were painted by Italian artist and activist Francesco Canale. • Catholic News Service
An angel announces the birth of Jesus to a shepherd in this Vatican Christmas stamp painted by Francesco Canale, an artist born without arms or legs who paints holding a brush between his teeth. The €1.20 Christmas stamp will go on sale at the Vatican post office Nov. 16, 2022. CNS photo/Vatican
