The Joy of the Gospel

then there is the practical dimension, which the note touches upon with revealing caution.

At number 45, it draws from Evangelii Gaudium to ask Christians to welcome their migrants with affection, while imploring their countries to grant Christians freedom of worship.

Note the asymmetry of the verbs.

On the one side, a duty.

On the contrary, we can't be on the sidelines in politics, because then those who are bad actors, who do not have the common good actually at heart, and do not want to see the vulnerable protected, will be the ones who get power, who have already gotten power on both sides of the aisle in many different eras of American history, and world history at that, instead of Catholics, who are seeking to make sure virtue is the highest ideal that we are striving for.

Pope Francis had this to say about the subject in Evangelii Gaudium.

This is paragraph 183.

"An authentic faith always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this Earth somehow better than we found it.

Yeah.

Um, boy, to just try to generalize that answer, I would, I would have to go with the title of, uh, you know, Pope Francis' 2013 Apostolic Exhortation, which Pope Leo has pointed to as of continuing importance: The Joy of the Gospel, right? The more we understand what God has revealed, the more we recognize that it's good news that causes us to rejoice in praising God and in serving others.

Hmm.

And, uh, maybe a question I should have maybe led with, uh, you know, in our conversation, but you've raised my curiosity.

And now he's living at your side every day to enlighten, to strengthen, and to free you.

The Joy of the Gospel, paragraph 164.

It points out to where our true, it points out to where our encounter with Jesus begins.

It's simply he loves.

but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them.

Cross our friends' apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium 198.

Christian solidarity commits us to engaging with reality and also to unmasking the contradictions that characterize personal and social life in the contemporary world.

For example, scientific and technological progress, which constantly offers new possibilities, but only to some, in which human beings do not always succeed in subjecting to their own welfare.

And so this bearing witness in a joyful way, as our Holy Father Pope Francis just said in his last encyclical, with joy, being a powerful witness of the Lord.

So in Evangelii Gaudium, the last encyclical of Pope Francis, he talks about being a witness to the joy of the gospel, and intercessory prayer is very much a part of that, and that we would have everyone become aware a praying church again, a house of prayer, praying for not only ourselves and the needs of our family, but going out of ourselves.

That kind of generosity, I like to say, I say to the Lord, I can't produce.

produce that kind of love and generosity.