Pope Francis: audience, “be sensitive to the many shipwrecked people in history who come to our shores exhausted”

“Be sensitive to the many shipwrecked people in history who come to our shores exhausted”. “We too” should “know how to welcome them with that fraternal love which comes from the encounter with Jesus”. Pope Francis ended his first general audience of 2020, dedicated to the account of St. Paul’s shipwreck in the final part of the Acts of the Apostles, with this appeal. “This is what saves us from the frost of indifference and inhumanity”, Pope Francis said, explaining that “Paul teaches us to live through trials by staying close to Christ, in order to develop the conviction that God is able to act in every situation, even amid apparent setbacks and the certainty that all those who entrust themselves to God in love will bear good fruit”. “God’s love is always fruitful - Pope Francis continued off the cuff - and if you let yourself be taken by the Lord and you receive the Lord’s gifts, this will enable you to give to others. It always goes beyond love to God”. “Let us ask the Lord today to help us to live every trial sustained by the energy of faith”, he exhorted at the end of the catechesis, delivered in the Paul VI Hall in front of 7,000 people, and “to be sensitive to the many shipwrecked people in history who come to our shores exhausted, because we too know how to welcome them with that fraternal love which comes from the encounter with Jesus. This is what saves us from the frost of indifference and inhumanity”.
Valentina Bombelli