Before the recitation of the Marian Prayer, Pope Francis focused his attention on Sunday’s Gospel reading from Mark, which recounts Jesus’ encounter with the “rich young man”.

The Holy Father explained that this text was built around the “three gazes of Jesus.”

The first is his “intense gaze full of tenderness and affection,” when the young man expressed that “for him observance of the precepts is not enough, since it does not meet with his desire for wholeness…

At the Synod of Bishops on the Family on Friday morning, participants presented the results of their small language group work that has been going on behind closed doors for the past couple of days. Each group has been discussing the first section of the Synod’s working document, orInstrumentum Laboris, focused on the challenges facing family life today.

Who exactly are those rows of men with their red and purple hats, sitting in the Synod Hall for three whole weeks? …

God does not abandon the righteous, while those who sow evil are like strangers, whose names heaven remembers not. This is the lesson Pope Francis drew from the readings of the day at Mass Thursday morning in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican.

A courageous young mother with a husband and three children – and a tumor – “one of the ugly ones” – that keeps her nailed to her bed…

At the press briefing on 7th October 2015, the Holy See Press Office announced that the Synod Fathers had elected chairpersons and moderators for their “circuli minores” (small groups). The thirteen groups were determined by language. The groups began to work on Wednesday morning on the first part of  Instrumentum Laboris which outlines the context in which contemporary family life is lived…

Pope Francis has warned against having a hard heart that is closed to God’s mercy.

Speaking on Tuesday morning during Mass at the Casa Santa Marta before joining the Synod Fathers gathered in the Vatican Synod Hall, the Pope urged the faithful not to put one’s own convictions or a list of commandments before the Lord’s mercy.

Drawing inspiration from the first reading of the Book of Jonah, the Pope pointed out that Jonah is initially resistant to God’s will, but eventually learns that he must obey the Lord. 

Remarking on the fact that the city of Nineveh converts thanks to Jonah’s preaching, Pope Francis said “it really was a miracle, because in this case he abandons his stubbornness, his rigidity,  to obey the will of God, and he did what the Lord commanded him.”

And afterwards, the Pope said, after the conversion of Nineveh, Jonah “who was not a man who was docile to the Spirit of God, was angry”…