POPE FRANCIS

GENERAL AUDIENCE

St Peter's Square

Wednesday, 12 September 2018

[Multimedia]

Dear Brothers and Sisters Good morning!

In today’s catechesis we return again to the third Commandment, the one regarding the day of rest. The Decalogue proclaimed in the Book of Exodus is repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy almost identically, except for this Third Word in which a precious difference appears: whereas in Exodus the motive for rest is the blessing of creation, in Deuteronomy, it commemorates the end of slavery. On this day, the slave has to rest just like the owner, to celebrate the memory of the Passover of liberation.

Indeed by definition, slaves cannot rest. But there are many forms of slavery, both interior and external constraints. There are exterior coercions such as oppression, lives seized by violence and other types of injustice. There are interior prisons which are for example, mental blocks, complexes, character limitations and more. Is there rest under these conditions? Can a recluse or an oppressed man or woman be free? And can a person who is tormented by inner difficulties be free?

Actually, there are people who experience great freedom of spirit even in prison. Let us think for example of Saint Maximilian Kolbe or Cardinal Van Thuan who transformed dark oppression into places of light. There are also people marked by great interior fragility who, however, know about the rest of mercy and how to transmit this. God’s mercy frees us. And when you encounter God’s mercy, you feel great interior freedom and you are also able to transmit it. This is why it is important to open oneself to God’s mercy so as not to be slaves to ourselves.

What then is true freedom? Does it consist, perhaps, in the freedom of choice? Certainly this is part of freedom and we commit ourselves to ensure this to every man and woman (cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 73). But we very well know that being able to do what one wants is not enough to be truly free nor even to be happy. True freedom is much more.

Indeed there is slavery which shackles more than a prison, more than a panic attack, more than any other kind of imposition: it is slavery to one’s ego.[1]Those people who spend the whole day in front of the mirror in order to see their ego. And one’s own ego is taller than one’s body. They are slaves to their ego. One’s ego can become a slave driver that tortures a person wherever he or she is, and causes that person the greatest oppression, namely “sin”, which is not the banal breach of a code, but the failure of existence and the condition of slavery (cf. Jn 8:34).[2]In the end, the ego is sin, saying: “I want to do this and I do not care if there is a limit, if there is a commandment, and I do not even care if there is love”.

Let us think, for example of ego in human passions: the glutton, the lustful, the miserly, the quick tempered, the envious, the bitter, the arrogant — and so forth — they are slaves to their vices which oppress and torment them. There is no relief for the greedy because gluttony is the hypocrisy of the stomach that is full but makes one think it is empty. The hypocritical stomach makes one a glutton. We are slaves to the hypocritical stomach. There is no respite for the glutton and the lustful who must live for pleasure; the anxiety of possession destroys the miser; they always hoard money, hurting others; the fire of anger and the woodworm of envy ruin relationships. Writers say that envy makes the body and soul yellow, like a person with hepatitis: they turn yellow. The envious have a yellow soul because they can never have the fresh complexion of a healthy soul. Envy destroys. Bitterness which eschews all effort and makes life impossible; arrogant egocentricity; that ego I was talking about digs a trench between itself and others.

Dear brothers and sisters, who then is the real slave? Who is the one who knows no rest? Those who are not capable of love! And all these vices, these sins, this egoism distance us from love and they make us unable to love. We are our own slaves and we cannot love because love is always outgoing.

The third Commandment which invites us to celebrate freedom with rest is, for us Christians, a prophecy of the Lord Jesus who breaks the interior slavery of sin, in order to make mankind capable of loving. True love is true freedom: it detaches us from possession, rebuilds relationships, knows how to welcome and value others, transforms all toil into a joyful gift and makes us capable of communion. Love makes people free even in prison, even if one is weak and limited.

This is the freedom that we receive from our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1]  Cf. Catechism  of the Catholic Church, 1733: “The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to ‘the slavery of sin’”.

[2] Cf. Catechism  of the Catholic Church, 1739: “Freedom and sin. Man’s freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God’s plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom”.

© Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

POPE FRANCIS

GENERAL AUDIENCE

St Peter's Square

Wednesday, 12 September 2018

[Multimedia]

Dear Brothers and Sisters Good morning!

In today’s catechesis we return again to the third Commandment, the one regarding the day of rest. The Decalogue proclaimed in the Book of Exodus is repeated in the Book of Deuteronomy almost identically, except for this Third Word in which a precious difference appears: whereas in Exodus the motive for rest is the blessing of creation, in Deuteronomy, it commemorates the end of slavery. On this day, the slave has to rest just like the owner, to celebrate the memory of the Passover of liberation.

Indeed by definition, slaves cannot rest. But there are many forms of slavery, both interior and external constraints. There are exterior coercions such as oppression, lives seized by violence and other types of injustice. There are interior prisons which are for example, mental blocks, complexes, character limitations and more. Is there rest under these conditions? Can a recluse or an oppressed man or woman be free? And can a person who is tormented by inner difficulties be free?

Actually, there are people who experience great freedom of spirit even in prison. Let us think for example of Saint Maximilian Kolbe or Cardinal Van Thuan who transformed dark oppression into places of light. There are also people marked by great interior fragility who, however, know about the rest of mercy and how to transmit this. God’s mercy frees us. And when you encounter God’s mercy, you feel great interior freedom and you are also able to transmit it. This is why it is important to open oneself to God’s mercy so as not to be slaves to ourselves.

What then is true freedom? Does it consist, perhaps, in the freedom of choice? Certainly this is part of freedom and we commit ourselves to ensure this to every man and woman (cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 73). But we very well know that being able to do what one wants is not enough to be truly free nor even to be happy. True freedom is much more.

Indeed there is slavery which shackles more than a prison, more than a panic attack, more than any other kind of imposition: it is slavery to one’s ego.[1]Those people who spend the whole day in front of the mirror in order to see their ego. And one’s own ego is taller than one’s body. They are slaves to their ego. One’s ego can become a slave driver that tortures a person wherever he or she is, and causes that person the greatest oppression, namely “sin”, which is not the banal breach of a code, but the failure of existence and the condition of slavery (cf. Jn 8:34).[2]In the end, the ego is sin, saying: “I want to do this and I do not care if there is a limit, if there is a commandment, and I do not even care if there is love”.

Let us think, for example of ego in human passions: the glutton, the lustful, the miserly, the quick tempered, the envious, the bitter, the arrogant — and so forth — they are slaves to their vices which oppress and torment them. There is no relief for the greedy because gluttony is the hypocrisy of the stomach that is full but makes one think it is empty. The hypocritical stomach makes one a glutton. We are slaves to the hypocritical stomach. There is no respite for the glutton and the lustful who must live for pleasure; the anxiety of possession destroys the miser; they always hoard money, hurting others; the fire of anger and the woodworm of envy ruin relationships. Writers say that envy makes the body and soul yellow, like a person with hepatitis: they turn yellow. The envious have a yellow soul because they can never have the fresh complexion of a healthy soul. Envy destroys. Bitterness which eschews all effort and makes life impossible; arrogant egocentricity; that ego I was talking about digs a trench between itself and others.

Dear brothers and sisters, who then is the real slave? Who is the one who knows no rest? Those who are not capable of love! And all these vices, these sins, this egoism distance us from love and they make us unable to love. We are our own slaves and we cannot love because love is always outgoing.

The third Commandment which invites us to celebrate freedom with rest is, for us Christians, a prophecy of the Lord Jesus who breaks the interior slavery of sin, in order to make mankind capable of loving. True love is true freedom: it detaches us from possession, rebuilds relationships, knows how to welcome and value others, transforms all toil into a joyful gift and makes us capable of communion. Love makes people free even in prison, even if one is weak and limited.

This is the freedom that we receive from our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1]  Cf. Catechism  of the Catholic Church, 1733: “The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to ‘the slavery of sin’”.

[2] Cf. Catechism  of the Catholic Church, 1739: “Freedom and sin. Man’s freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God’s plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom”.

© Copyright - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Decree on Virtues

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:14).

To fall to the earth and die is not, therefore the only way to hear fruit, but also “to save your own life”, that is to continue to live!  This order, taken up by the Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân, expresses efficiently the unfolding of his life.

From his youth the Servant of God choose as role models three saints: Saint Therese of Lisieux, from which he learned “the way of spiritual infancy”; Saint John Mary Vianney, who taught him the virtue of humility, patience and the value of hard work; and Saint Francis Xavier, the great apostle of Asia, from which he learned indifference in the face of success or failure.

Benedict XVI, in a solemn way before the eyes of the world, paid homage to the Servant of God in his Encyclical Letter Spe salvi, in which he is indicated as an example to follow in prayer, particularly when we find ourselves in a state of seemingly total desperation, to not give up or look for a way out.  This was the condition of the Servant of God during the endless years of his imprisonment, during which, however, “the fact that he could listen and speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over the world a witness to hope – to that hope which does not wane even in the nights of solitude” (Spe salvi, n. 32).

This witness of faith, hope and charity of the Servant of God, given generously day after day with humility and discretion, is a constant invitation to collective holiness, which finds its greatest expression in fidelity to God and in his reciprocal help to travel the way of holiness.

The Servant of God was equipped with an intelligence greater than normal and had great ease with words and writing.  His vocation was one of a pastor of souls who spends all his energy for the good of the Church, for peace and for justice.  He had the honor to preach the spiritual exercises to St. John Paul II and the Roman Curia in 2000.  He was created cardinal by John Paul II in the consistory of 21 February 2001, with the title of Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria della Scala.  The same Pontiff asked the Servant of God to prepare the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: Card. Van Thuân formed a commission entrusted to study it and he participated assiduously in the meetings, animating and encouraging them.  With his humility and wisdom, he helped to overcome moments of stalemate and difficulty on the way that were longer than expected.  He died serenely on 16 September 2002 following a long illness, with a vast and very solid fame of holiness.

On 22 October 2010 there proceeded the solemn opening of his case of Beatification and Canonization at the Apostolic Palace of the Lateran. The closure of the diocesan inquiry was 5 July 2013.  His juridical validity was identified by this Congregation of the Causes of Saints with the decree of 22 November 2013.  The Positio was prepared and discussed, according to the normal procedure to see if the Servant of God had exercised the virtues in a heroic manner.  On 13 December 2016 there was held, with a positive outcome, the Peculiar Congresses of the Theological Advisors.  The Cardinal and Bishop Fathers in the Ordinary Session of 2 May 2017, presided over by me, Card. Angelo Amato, S.D.B., has identified that the Servant of God exercised on a heroic level the Theological, Cardinal, and connected virtues.

Finally submitted to the Supreme Pontiff Francis in an accurate way by means of the Cardinal Prefect, His Holiness, welcoming the votes of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints and ratifying them, on the same day declared: Consisting of the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity be it toward God or to neighbor as well as the Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude, and the other connected virtues, in a heroic way the Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, in case and effect of that which is concerned. 

The Supreme Pontiff orders that the aforementioned decree be published and reported amongst the acts of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints.

Given in Rome, the 4^th of May 2017.

ANGELUS Card. AMATO, S.D.B.

Prefect

† MARCELLUS BARTOLUCCI

Archiepiscopus tit. Mevaniensis

Secretary

Decree on Virtues

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:14).

To fall to the earth and die is not, therefore the only way to hear fruit, but also “to save your own life”, that is to continue to live!  This order, taken up by the Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân, expresses efficiently the unfolding of his life.

From his youth the Servant of God choose as role models three saints: Saint Therese of Lisieux, from which he learned “the way of spiritual infancy”; Saint John Mary Vianney, who taught him the virtue of humility, patience and the value of hard work; and Saint Francis Xavier, the great apostle of Asia, from which he learned indifference in the face of success or failure.

Benedict XVI, in a solemn way before the eyes of the world, paid homage to the Servant of God in his Encyclical Letter Spe salvi, in which he is indicated as an example to follow in prayer, particularly when we find ourselves in a state of seemingly total desperation, to not give up or look for a way out.  This was the condition of the Servant of God during the endless years of his imprisonment, during which, however, “the fact that he could listen and speak to God became for him an increasing power of hope, which enabled him, after his release, to become for people all over the world a witness to hope – to that hope which does not wane even in the nights of solitude” (Spe salvi, n. 32).

This witness of faith, hope and charity of the Servant of God, given generously day after day with humility and discretion, is a constant invitation to collective holiness, which finds its greatest expression in fidelity to God and in his reciprocal help to travel the way of holiness.

The Servant of God was equipped with an intelligence greater than normal and had great ease with words and writing.  His vocation was one of a pastor of souls who spends all his energy for the good of the Church, for peace and for justice.  He had the honor to preach the spiritual exercises to St. John Paul II and the Roman Curia in 2000.  He was created cardinal by John Paul II in the consistory of 21 February 2001, with the title of Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria della Scala.  The same Pontiff asked the Servant of God to prepare the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: Card. Van Thuân formed a commission entrusted to study it and he participated assiduously in the meetings, animating and encouraging them.  With his humility and wisdom, he helped to overcome moments of stalemate and difficulty on the way that were longer than expected.  He died serenely on 16 September 2002 following a long illness, with a vast and very solid fame of holiness.

On 22 October 2010 there proceeded the solemn opening of his case of Beatification and Canonization at the Apostolic Palace of the Lateran. The closure of the diocesan inquiry was 5 July 2013.  His juridical validity was identified by this Congregation of the Causes of Saints with the decree of 22 November 2013.  The Positio was prepared and discussed, according to the normal procedure to see if the Servant of God had exercised the virtues in a heroic manner.  On 13 December 2016 there was held, with a positive outcome, the Peculiar Congresses of the Theological Advisors.  The Cardinal and Bishop Fathers in the Ordinary Session of 2 May 2017, presided over by me, Card. Angelo Amato, S.D.B., has identified that the Servant of God exercised on a heroic level the Theological, Cardinal, and connected virtues.

Finally submitted to the Supreme Pontiff Francis in an accurate way by means of the Cardinal Prefect, His Holiness, welcoming the votes of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints and ratifying them, on the same day declared: Consisting of the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity be it toward God or to neighbor as well as the Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude, and the other connected virtues, in a heroic way the Servant of God Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, in case and effect of that which is concerned. 

The Supreme Pontiff orders that the aforementioned decree be published and reported amongst the acts of the Congregation of the Causes of Saints.

Given in Rome, the 4^th of May 2017.

ANGELUS Card. AMATO, S.D.B.

Prefect

† MARCELLUS BARTOLUCCI

Archiepiscopus tit. Mevaniensis

Secretary