Mercy, mission, prayer, simplicity, and sobriety, poverty, evangelisation, joy, spiritual struggle, holiness, … ecology etc. For the last 10 days we have been able to discover some of the above themes that our Holy Father holds dear to his heart. Some of them were mentioned during his speech given to the assembly of entrepreneurs, including Thomas, on December 2nd.

In honour of today, Pope Francis's 5o years of priesthood and the end of 11 days of prayer especially for him, we would like to share with you a few passages of his speech given just after receiving the list of your names. The 5 citations will help you to understand more profoundly 8 central themes in the teachings of Pope Francis.

Sayings…

1. Spiritual Struggle in face of market reality

“I imagine that daily you are faced with internal conflict when making decisions pertaining to business such as market competition, increasing productivity, marketing, publicity, and consumerism…”

2. Integral ecology and poverty – open your eyes to the world

“In the Encyclical “Laudato si”, the world situation today has been evaluated to some extent (…) and has alerted us on how degraded our common home “Earth” has become. In addition, there has been an alarming increase of different types of poverty and servitude (slavery and oppression) among our fellow man.”

3. Mission – Become an actor in changing daily life

“You probably don't have an immediate and efficient answer for today's worldly challenges. You might even feel helpless. But in fact you have an important role to play; even a modest one, by changing certain everyday habits of lifestyle (…). It is possible for you to concretely change things little by little and educate the workforce in a new manner.”

4. Prayer and joy- spiritual conversion- where true joy lies

“Christian spirituality offers us another way of looking at the quality of life and encourages a prophetic and contemplative lifestyle, giving each of us profound joy without being obsessed by consumtion.”

5. Simplicity and sobriety – Our personal life – first place of conversion

"I invite you in your personal life to commit yourself to living more simply and soberly. In this way, your future commitments will be made more freely and easily and you yourself will obtain a peace of mind and heart.”

A Prayer…

Today on the 50th anniversary of priesthood of Pope Francis let us ask God to especially bless him with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit may you continue working on the heart of your servant daily. Through the hands and the words of our Holy Father, may You take action in the world, guide the Church and convert hearts. Amen !

Three ways to pray for this intention:
1. I click immediately on the tab “I pray” just below, and I carefully read the “prayer to the Holy Spirit for Pope Francis”
2. I say 10 Hail Marys and I click on the tab “I pray”
3. I offer 3 minutes of silence, heart to heart, with God, then I click on the tab “I pray”