Pope Francis explains God's love, mans hope and childlike insistence

By Kenya Sinclair (CALIFORNIA NETWORK)
2/16/2017 (4 months ago)
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Pope Francis spoke of God's love at his weekly general audience.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - He explained God's love gives us all "security," through hard times and sin.

The Pontiff admitted God's love permeates sin, even when "I have done something terrible and evil."

The Pope continued, stating: "No one can take this security from us. We must repeat it like a prayer: God loves me. I am sure that God loves me!"

Following his audience, Pope Francis greeted several Italian-speaking pilgrims and children's choirs from Italy and Spain.

As he met each group, choirs erupted in song, interrupting the joyous Pope.

"When you want something, that's how you do it," he stated. "That's what we should do with prayer; when asking something from the Lord: insist, insist, insist. That is a beautiful example, a beautiful example of prayer."

Pope Francis took a moment to speak of St. Paul's letter to the Romans. St. Paul said Christians "should boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope."

People are often taught that boasting is a negative thing but the Pontiff explained Christians are called to "boast of the abundance of grace we have received in Jesus Christ" by "learning to read everything with the light of the Holy Spirit.

"If we pay attention, acting - in our history, in our lives - we are not alone, but above all with God. It is he who is the absolute protagonist, who creates everything as a gift of love, who weaves the storyline of his plan of salvation and who fulfills it in us through his son."

Pope Francis continued to say: "It's easy to say 'God loves us.' But think a little; is each one of us capable of saying: 'I am sure that God loves me?' It is not so easy to say but it is true.

"This is a good exercise, to tell yourselves, 'God loves me.' This is the root of our security, the root of our hope...Our greatest boast is having, as a father, a God who does not make preferences, who excludes no one, but rather opens his home to all human beings, beginning from the last ones to the far away so that as his children, we learn to console and support one another."

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Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for JUNE 2017
National Leaders. That national leaders may firmly commit themselves to ending the arms trade, which victimizes so many innocent people.