He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people. His fame spread throughout the Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them. Large crowds followed him, coming from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judaea and Transjordania. Seeing the crowds, he went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle: they shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied. Happy the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them. Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God.”
He went round the whole of Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom and curing all kinds of diseases and sickness among the people. His fame spread throughout the Syria, and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralysed, were all brought to him, and he cured them. Large crowds followed him, coming from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judaea and Transjordania. Seeing the crowds, he went up the hill. There he sat down and was joined by his disciples. Then he began to speak. This is what he taught them: “How happy are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy the gentle: they shall have the earth for their heritage. Happy those who mourn: they shall be comforted. Happy those who hunger and thirst for what is right: they shall be satisfied. Happy the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them. Happy the pure in heart: they shall see God.”
ROME
From his childhood in Chicago to missionary work in Peru, the first authorised biography of His Holiness Papa Leone, by Vatican correspondent Elise Ann Allen, due for release on 30th April »
Easter ‘26
Black coffee & a bread roll
The diplomacy of Leo XIII
Taking village sheep to pasture
Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping
The hidden truth of Jesus Christ
Mathematician Blaise Pascal
Clatter of a monastery kitchen
Joys of Brother Lawrence
Beautiful nights at sea
Martyr in Tonkin
IN THE COUNTRYSIDE CLOSE BY THERE WERE SHEPHERDS WHO LIVED IN THE FIELDS AND TOOK IT IN TURNS TO WATCH THEIR FLOCKS DURING THE NIGHT
THE ANGEL OF THE LORD APPEARED TO THEM AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHONE ROUND THEM
THEY WERE TERRIFIED
BUT THE ANGEL SAID, DO NOT BE AFRAID
LISTEN, I BRING YOU NEWS OF GREAT JOY
A JOY TO BE SHARED BY THE WHOLE PEOPLE
IN THE COUNTRYSIDE CLOSE BY THERE WERE SHEPHERDS WHO LIVED IN THE FIELDS AND TOOK IT IN TURNS TO WATCH THEIR FLOCKS DURING THE NIGHT THE ANGEL OF THE LORD APPEARED TO THEM AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHONE ROUND THEM THEY WERE TERRIFIED BUT THE ANGEL SAID, DO NOT BE AFRAID LISTEN, I BRING YOU NEWS OF GREAT JOY A JOY TO BE SHARED BY THE WHOLE PEOPLE
Cover: Fabrizio Maffei © Shutterstock
Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, made by a family-owned plaster workshop in Liverpool, E. Carrara & Sons »
UKRAINE
Painted eggs and decorated cakes are blessed by priests every Easter in Poland and Ukraine, where Pope Leo’s diplomat, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, describes it as a “privilege” and “grace of God” to be encircled by Russian drones, working with sisters who pray to be allowed to stay. “The Holy See never closes its doors,” says Cardinal Gugerotti, a former ambassador to Kyiv, landing from Belarus as prisoners were released. “When people meet face to face, concrete results are born.”
Trained in Croatia’s ancient churches, Archbishop Ante Jozić has explored talks close to Russia: his car was hit in a tunnel and his counterpart died of a heart attack after they met in Minsk, but with support from American president, Donald Trump, a peace agreement has settled on the borders of Azerbaijan.
Jakub T. Jankiewicz © Wikipedia
Mont-Saint-Michel in France, accessible to pilgrims crossing the Normandy sands, but impossible for the English to conquer between incoming tides, with midday Mass from Tuesday to Saturday, evening prayers at 6.20pm, restaurants famous for their omelettes and a guest house run by seven nuns
Kolisnyk Mykola © Shutterstock
Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy
Midday Mass from Tuesday to Saturday
Restaurants famous for their omelettes
Guest house run by seven nuns
Kolisnyk Mykola © Shutterstock
1870
The life and letters of Jean-Théophane Vénard greatly inspired Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Théophane Vénard loved watching goats in his father’s field as a boy growing-up in the valleys of France, reading books about martyrs in China. “Dear Papa,” he asked, soon after his First Communion, thinking he should study Latin at missionary college, “how much is this field worth?”
It was heartbreaking for a happy family to lose their beloved son, brave and trusting even at the loss of his mother. “Oh my God, enable me to say, Thy Will be done!” he wrote to his father. “May His Holy Name be blessed... I have cried till I can cry no longer, and I have prayed with all my heart for her dear soul.”
The whims of Paris, lost in poetry, pictures and palace gardens, then barricades and revolution, only heightened his love of college, “its cool, quiet cloisters, the peace in its cells… the recollection of its history,” each striving to be foremost in consideration for the other, but suffering, Vénard could see, was the true money that purchased Heaven, and “I have not a penny,” he told his sister, always showered with love and kindness. “I am as poor as a church mouse.”
At last, he set sail in an American clipper from Antwerp. “How beautiful the nights are at sea,” he wrote to his family. “He who watches over the birds of the air, and the flowers of the field, will He not take care of me... ? Only a little more trust! A little more confidence in God! A little more patience… ! Let us hasten on to our home in Heaven.”
“He who follows Me, walks not in darkness,” says the Lord. He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and makes nothing of the highest honour. He who does God’s will and renounces his own is truly very learned. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself. The more recollected a man is, and the more simple of heart he becomes, the easier he understands sublime things, for he receives the light of knowledge from above. A good life makes a man wise according to God and gives him experience in many things, for the more humble he is and the more subject to God, the wiser and the more at peace he will be in all things. When a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have deceived many. We are too occupied with our own whims and fancies, too taken up with passing things. When we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected and turn to human consolations. If we tried, however, to stand as brave men in battle, the help of the Lord from heaven would surely sustain us. For He Who gives us the opportunity of fighting for victory, is ready to help those who carry on and trust in His grace. Let us, then, lay the ax to the root that we may be freed from our passions and thus have peace of mind. If we were to uproot only one vice each year, we should soon become perfect. The contrary, however, is often the case. We feel that we were better and purer in the first fervour of our conversion than we are after many years in the practice of our faith. The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways. Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us. An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than he can see. He does much who loves much. He does much who does a thing well. He does well who serves the common good rather than his own interests. No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes obscurity. No man is safe in speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man commands safely unless he has learned well how to obey. No man rejoices safely unless he has within him the testimony of a good conscience. Fight like a man. Habit is overcome by habit. If you leave men alone, they will leave you alone to do what you have to do. Who is forced to struggle more than he who tries to master himself? This ought to be our purpose, then: to conquer self, to become stronger each day, to advance in virtue. The time will come when you will want just one day, just one hour in which to make amends, and do you know whether you will obtain it? And you, miserable and wretched sinner, who fear even the countenance of an angry man, what answer will you make to the God Who knows all your sins? Then the cheap garment will shine with splendour and the rich one become faded and worn. In that day persevering patience will count more than all the power in this world.
“He who follows Me, walks not in darkness,” says the Lord. He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and makes nothing of the highest honour. He who does God’s will and renounces his own is truly very learned. To think of oneself as nothing, and always to think well and highly of others is the best and most perfect wisdom. All men are frail, but you must admit that none is more frail than yourself. The more recollected a man is, and the more simple of heart he becomes, the easier he understands sublime things, for he receives the light of knowledge from above. A good life makes a man wise according to God and gives him experience in many things, for the more humble he is and the more subject to God, the wiser and the more at peace he will be in all things. When a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. Dreams of happiness expected from change and different places have deceived many. We are too occupied with our own whims and fancies, too taken up with passing things. When we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected and turn to human consolations. If we tried, however, to stand as brave men in battle, the help of the Lord from heaven would surely sustain us. For He Who gives us the opportunity of fighting for victory, is ready to help those who carry on and trust in His grace. Let us, then, lay the ax to the root that we may be freed from our passions and thus have peace of mind. If we were to uproot only one vice each year, we should soon become perfect. The contrary, however, is often the case. We feel that we were better and purer in the first fervour of our conversion than we are after many years in the practice of our faith. The beginning of all temptation lies in a wavering mind and little trust in God, for as a rudderless ship is driven hither and yon by waves, so a careless and irresolute man is tempted in many ways. Fire tempers iron and temptation steels the just. We should not despair, therefore, when we are tempted, but pray to God the more fervently that He may see fit to help us. An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than he can see. He does much who loves much. He does much who does a thing well. He does well who serves the common good rather than his own interests. No man appears in safety before the public eye unless he first relishes obscurity. No man is safe in speaking unless he loves to be silent. No man commands safely unless he has learned well how to obey. No man rejoices safely unless he has within him the testimony of a good conscience. Fight like a man. Habit is overcome by habit. If you leave men alone, they will leave you alone to do what you have to do. Who is forced to struggle more than he who tries to master himself? This ought to be our purpose, then: to conquer self, to become stronger each day, to advance in virtue. The time will come when you will want just one day, just one hour in which to make amends, and do you know whether you will obtain it? And you, miserable and wretched sinner, who fear even the countenance of an angry man, what answer will you make to the God Who knows all your sins? Then the cheap garment will shine with splendour and the rich one become faded and worn. In that day persevering patience will count more than all the power in this world.
• Maxims of monk Thomas à Kempis
“Thérèse, if you will kiss the ground I will give you a halfpenny.” In those days a halfpenny was a fortune, and in order to gain it
I had not far to stoop, for I was so tiny there was not much distance between me and the ground; but my pride was up
in arms, and holding myself very erect, I said, “No, thank
you, Mamma, I would rather go without it.”
One day Léonie, thinking no doubt that she was too big to play with dolls, brought us a basket filled with clothes, pretty pieces
of stuff, and other trifles on which her doll was laid: “Here, dears,” she said, “choose whatever you like.” Céline looked at it, and took a woollen ball. After thinking about it for a minute, I put out my hand saying: “I choose everything,” and I carried off both doll
and basket without more ado. This childish incident was a forecast, so to speak, of my whole life... To be Thy Spouse, O my Jesus… should not all this content me? And yet other vocations make themselves felt—I feel called to the Priesthood and to the Apostolate—I would be a Martyr, a Doctor of the Church. I
should like to accomplish the most heroic deeds —the spirit
of the Crusader burns within me, and I long to die on the
field of battle in defence of Holy Church.
I remember how one day when we were out, the blue sky
became overcast and a storm came on, accompanied by vivid lightning. I looked round on every side, so as to lose nothing
of the grand sight. A thunderbolt fell in a field close by, and, far
from feeling the least bit afraid, I was delighted—it seemed that God was so near. Papa was not so pleased, and put an end to my reverie.
Extracts from the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
“Thérèse, if you will kiss the ground I will give you a halfpenny.” In those days a halfpenny was a fortune, and in order to gain it I had not far to stoop, for I was so tiny there was not much distance between me and the ground; but my pride was up in arms, and holding myself very erect, I said, “No, thank you, Mamma, I would rather go without it.”
I remember how one day when we were out, the blue sky became overcast and a storm came on, accompanied by vivid lightning. I looked round on every side, so as to lose nothing of the grand sight. A thunderbolt fell in a field close by, and, far from feeling the least bit afraid, I was delighted—it seemed that God was so near. Papa was not so pleased, and put an end to my reverie.
From the Autobiography
of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Between bars in Granada, a hidden chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus »
A hidden chapel between bars in Granada »
“When the Son of Man
comes, will he find any
faith on earth?”
Street scenes in Valletta by Giannis
Papanikos and Sergio Capuzzimati
© Shutterstock
The full immensity of Jesus is
revealed when he makes himself
small, says Pope Leo XIV, laying
aside his infinite majesty to
walk as our neighbour on the
earth, revolutionising pagan
conceptions of God
From the drawings of architect Alejandro Beautell, churches are popping-up in Tenerife »
THE WORD OF GOD
Oil
Hebrew: שֶׁמֶן (shemen)
“The wife of a member of the prophetic brotherhood appealed to Elisha. ‘Your servant my husband is dead,’ she said ‘and you know how your servant revered the Lord. A creditor has now come to take my two children and make them his slaves.’ Elisha said, ‘What can I do for you? Tell me, what have you in the house?’ ‘Your servant has nothing in the house,’ she replied, ‘except a pot of oil.’ Then he said, ‘Go outside and borrow jars from all your neighbours, empty jars and not too few. When you come back, shut the door on yourself and your sons, and pour the oil into all these jars, putting each aside when it is full.’ So she left him; and she shut the door on herself and her sons; they passed her the jars and she went on pouring. When the jars were full, she said to her son, ‘Pass me another jar’. ‘There are no more’ he replied. Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, who said, ‘Go and sell the oil and redeem your pledge; you and your children can live on the remainder.’
Second Book of Kings, Chapter 4
Mary and the apostles outside the Ta’ Pinu Basilica, Gozo island, off Malta (salajean © Shutterstock)
The Widow’s Oil can be seen as a sheer miracle, like “The Feeding of the 5,000”, or, we have more than we realise: the widow has “nothing in the house”, she insists, “except a pot of oil”, which symbolises God’s blessing, poured out in abundance. We look for the Almighty in the night sky and in the vastness of time and it is daunting to consider our smallness, and the challenges we face, but much easier to see God’s will in all the details of life, such as unfinished tasks entrusted to us, leading, one jar at a time, beyond anything we could have envisaged.
Saint Joseph’s parish church in the farming valleys of Manikata, north Malta (Didi8600 © Wiki)
70 nuns operating a large jam factory behind monastery gates in Viterbo »
70 nuns operating jam factory in Viterbo »
Iglesia de San Antón, a church and “field hospital” in Madrid, where parishioners can bring animals to be blessed every January 17th, remembering desert hermit Saint Anthony the Abbot (Egypt, 251 to 356), who had a miraculous friendship with a small pig, ringing a bell when it was time to pray (Chueca metro station, 63 Calle De Hortaleza)
Oscar Gonzalez Fuentes © Shutterstock
Iglesia de San Antón in Madrid
Blessing of animals every January 17th
63 Calle De Hortaleza, Chueca metro
“Field hospital” for the homeless
Oscar Gonzalez Fuentes © Shutterstock
THE WORD OF GOD
Bread
Greek: ἄρτος (artos)
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city and you will meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him, and say to the owner of the house which he enters, “The Master says: Where is my dining room in which I can eat the passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room furnished with couches, all prepared.’
The Gospel According to Mark, Chapter 14
Let us reflect on a word that holds “a precious secret of Christian life”, Pope Leo tells the faithful. The disciples ask where to “prepare” the Passover, a practical question, “filled with anticipation.” Jesus’ answer is almost a riddle: “Go into the city and a man will meet you, carrying a pitcher of water,” as if everything has been arranged in advance.
The Gospel shows us that love is not the product of chance, Pope Leo explains, “but a decision that requires preparation.” Jesus does not face his Passion out of fatalism, but “fidelity” to a path freely followed. That upstairs room, already prepared, shows that God always precedes us. Before we realise, the Lord has prepared a space for us, “and that place is fundamentally, our heart, a room that may seem empty, but which awaits only to be recognised, filled and cherished.”
“Today too, there is a supper to prepare. The Eucharist is not celebrated only at the altar, but in daily life, where it is possible to experience everything as an offering of thanks. To celebrate this does not mean doing more,” the Pope assures us, “but leaving room”, letting go of the demands and expectations that encumber us. “Too often,” Pope Leo warns, “we confuse preparations with illusions.” Illusions distract us and seek a result; preparations guide us and make an encounter possible. “True love, the Gospel reminds us, is given before it is reciprocated.”
“We can ask ourselves, then: what spaces in my life do I need to put in order so they are ready to receive the Lord? What does it mean for me today to prepare?” Every gesture of willingness and every forgiveness is a way to prepare a place where God can dwell. And when we “accept the invitation, we will discover we are surrounded by signs, encounters and words that guide us towards that room, spacious and already prepared, in which the mystery of an infinite love, sustaining us and always preceding us, is celebrated unceasingly.”
Albi Cathedral in France, one of the world’s largest brick buildings, took almost 200 years to complete (1282 to 1480), with a monumental baroque organ and Sunday Mass at 10:30am, an hour by train from Toulouse Cathedral, with its own beautifully faded side chapels
Matteo Cozzi © Shutterstock
Albi Cathedral in France
200 years to complete (1282 to 1480)
Thundering organ & 10.30am Sunday Mass
One hour by train from Toulouse Cathedral
Matteo Cozzi © Shutterstock
Our Lady of Luján is a terracotta icon of the Virgin Mary made in 1630, shipped to Buenos Aires and loaded onto a cart for a distant province, but after just 10km the oxen refused to continue, until the icon was unloaded. Immediately recognised as a miracle, it is now the national shrine of Argentina and for Pope Francis, the first from South America, was a reminder of the profound value of popular piety, known in Rome as “sensus fidelium”, the idea that the humble and trusting faithful are more receptive to the truth and Christ than even the clergy, buried in books and stifled by procedures. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me,” Jesus reassures us. “Wisdom has been proved right by all her children.”
“Idleness is the enemy of the soul,” say nuns making honeysuckle & lemon soap in the fields of Tuscany »
THE WORD OF GOD
Kiss
Aramaic: נשׁק (nashaq)
“One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has’. Then Jesus took him up and said, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you’. ‘Speak, Master’ was the reply.
The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 7
Shutterstock © salajean
70,000 love-struck Catholics get engaged each week globally (“You may now kiss the bride…”) and there are many kisses in church art and the Bible: “You gave me no kiss,” Jesus reprimands the Pharisee, “but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since I came in.” So Argentine priest Víctor Manuel Fernández surveyed 1,000 people on the streets of Buenos Aires, to “synthesise the immense richness of life”, and wrote a paper on the art and theology of kissing, which shocked some Catholics, though we were all kissed once by our parents, and Pope Francis made him a cardinal, speeding-up decisions in an earnest department of priests once known as “The Inquisition”, still based in the Vatican, sifting the Church’s official teaching.
So what does the paper propose? “The kiss is the thermometer of love,” Fernández beautifully suggests. “Your whole being goes into a kiss,” a meeting of two souls in a moment in which there is nothing else besides them, “and nothing else matters.” All of human love is united: tenderness, passion, joy, admiration, delicacy, strength, delivery, communication. In one kiss there are “two breathings”, wrote English monk Saint Aelred (1110 to 1167), “two spirits are mixed together.”
Kissing is of timeless importance. “Give me a thousand kisses,” wrote the Roman poet Catullus before the birth of Christ, “then yet another thousand more.” It is almost a “permanent desire”, something imperatively necessary that can never be attained at all, a dream without limits: the kiss is the end, the point of arrival for all the paths and desires of a heart. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine,” Romeo promises Juliet, “the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”
There are kisses of many kind, Fernández admits: the kiss of a mother of her newborn son, the kiss of an awaited letter, the kiss between brothers, the kiss of a crucifix, a holy card, or the Bible. The first kiss of lovers. The kiss of a pious old lady of the hands of the priest. But it always means more than a gaze, or an embrace, as it requires more honesty, respect and tenderness, and more permission. “The kiss is when everything else falls short,” Fernández concludes, and in God we find “an infinite kiss... an ineffable kiss that is mysteriously reflected in all kisses on Earth.”
Our Lady of the Rocks in Montenegro (“Gospa od Škrpjela”), built on an island formed by fishermen, who piled rocks into Kotor Bay to thank the Virgin Mary after each successful journey, alongside the silent island of Saint George, with a Benedictine monastery hidden under cypress trees
Anton Matis © Shutterstock
Our Lady of the Rocks in Montenegro
Built on an artificial island in Kotor Bay
Fishermen piled-up rocks for Holy Mary
Silent monastery under cypress trees
Anton Matis © Shutterstock
SOUTH CHINA SEA
On the Western tip of Japan, closer to Korea than Kyoto, ten tiny churches are hidden in rocky inlets, with shy-looking bell towers and wooden beams, painted cream, pink and pastel orange. Having built 40 churches on the coast of India, Portuguese missionary Saint Francis Xavier landed at Kagoshima in 1549; more than two centuries later, chapels appeared in fishing villages when a ban on Christianity was lifted. Too small for large groups, Kashiragashima church (daily Mass) and Ono (yearly) are two of the prettiest, but many are protected by boat journeys, UNESCO World Heritage status and a visitor centre in Nagasaki that has instructions on ‘manners’ and impeccable Lego models of those sites too distant for the casual traveller.
Fabrizio Maffei © Shutterstock
Trinty, which exceedeth all Being, Deity, and Goodness! Thou that instructeth Christians in Thy heavenly wisdom! Guide us to that topmost height of mystic lore which exceedeth light and more than exceedeth knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and unchangeable mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness, and surcharging our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible fairness of glories which exceed all beauty! Such be my prayer. Strain (so far as thou mayest) towards an union with Him whom neither being nor understanding can contain. For, by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of thyself and all things, thou shalt in pureness cast all things aside, and be released from all, and so shalt be led upwards to the Ray of that divine Darkness which exceedeth all existence. The Good Cause of all things is eloquent yet speaks few words, or rather none; possessing neither speech nor understanding because it exceedeth all things... and is revealed in Its naked truth to those alone who pass right through the opposition of fair and foul, and pass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent and leave behind them all divine enlightenment and voices and heavenly utterances and plunge into the Darkness where truly dwells, as saith the Scripture, that One Which is beyond all things.
Trinty, which exceedeth all Being, Deity, and Goodness! Thou that instructeth Christians in Thy heavenly wisdom! Guide us to that topmost height of mystic lore which exceedeth light and more than exceedeth knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and unchangeable mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness, and surcharging our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible fairness of glories which exceed all beauty! Such be my prayer. Strain (so far as thou mayest) towards an union with Him whom neither being nor understanding can contain. For, by the unceasing and absolute renunciation of thyself and all things, thou shalt in pureness cast all things aside, and be released from all, and so shalt be led upwards to the Ray of that divine Darkness which exceedeth all existence. The Good Cause of all things is eloquent yet speaks few words, or rather none; possessing neither speech nor understanding because it exceedeth all things... and is revealed in Its naked truth to those alone who pass right through the opposition of fair and foul, and pass beyond the topmost altitudes of the holy ascent and leave behind them all divine enlightenment and voices and heavenly utterances and plunge into the Darkness where truly dwells, as saith the Scripture, that One Which is beyond all things.
• Sublime perceptions of Saint Dionysius
My sisters decided I was too small to go to the May devotions every evening, so I stayed at home with the nurse and said my prayers with her before the little altar which I had arranged according to my own taste. Everything was small—candlesticks, vases, and the rest; two wax vestas were quite sufficient to light
it up properly. Sometimes Victoire, the maid, gave me some little bits of real candle, but not often. One evening, when we went to our prayers, I said to her: “Will you begin the Memorare? I am going to light the candles.” She tried to begin, and then looked
at me and burst out laughing. Seeing my precious vestas burning quickly away, I begged her once more to say the Memorare. Again there was silence, broken only by bursts of laughter. All my natural good temper deserted me. I got up feeling dreadfully angry, and, stamping my foot furiously, I cried out: “Victoire, you naughty girl!” She stopped laughing at once, and looked at me in utter astonishment, then showed me—too late—the surprise she had in store hidden under her apron—two pieces of candle. My tears of anger were soon changed into tears of sorrow; I was very much ashamed and grieved, and made a firm resolution never to act in such a way again.
One day Papa was standing on a high step-ladder, and as I was close by he called out: “Move away, little Queen; if I fall I shall crush you.” Instantly I felt an inward shock, and, going still nearer to the ladder, I thought: “At least if Papa falls I shall not have the pain of seeing him die, for I shall die with him.” I could never say how much I loved him. I admired everything he did.
When he explained his ideas on serious matters, as if I were a big girl, I answered him naïvely: “It is quite certain, Papa, that if you spoke like that to the great men who govern the country they would take you and make you King. Then France would be happier than it was ever been; but you would be unhappy, because that is the lot of kings; besides you would no longer be my King alone,
so I am glad that they do not know you.”
Extracts from the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
My sisters decided I was too small to go to the May devotions every evening, so I stayed at home with the nurse and said my prayers with her before the little altar which I had arranged according to my own taste. Everything was small—candlesticks, vases, and the rest; two wax vestas were quite sufficient to light it up properly. Sometimes Victoire, the maid, gave me some little bits of real candle, but not often. One evening, when we went to our prayers, I said to her: “Will you begin the Memorare? I am going to light the candles.” She tried to begin, and then looked at me and burst out laughing. Seeing my precious vestas burning quickly away, I begged her once more to say the Memorare. Again there was silence, broken only by bursts of laughter. All my natural good temper deserted me. I got up feeling dreadfully angry, and, stamping my foot furiously, I cried out: “Victoire, you naughty girl!” She stopped laughing at once, and looked at me in utter astonishment, then showed me—too late—the surprise she had in store hidden under her apron—two pieces of candle. My tears of anger were soon changed into tears of sorrow; I was very much ashamed and grieved, and made a firm resolution never to act in such a way again.
From the Autobiography
of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
Nuns worldwide, bigger than
the U.S. Navy, helping to run 155,000 schools and 5,377 hospitals
“
The Church is the visible sign of the union between God and humanity… where God intends to bring us all together into one family of brothers and sisters, united in the embrace of his love. We are all children of God, called to serve one another. No one is called to dominate; we must listen to one another. No one is excluded; we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must humbly seek it together… the supreme rule in the Church is love.
Pope Leo XIV, 26th Oct. 2025
Riccardo De Luca © Shutterstock
1691
Pope Leo has written a
foreword for an Italian
edition published by
the Vatican
Aside from Saint Augustine, the book that has most shaped Pope Leo, turning a young American priest into our supreme pontiff, is a short collection of letters by a clumsy French soldier and footman who considered himself damned, so joined a barefoot monastery in Paris in 1666, expecting the severest discipline, only to find the Lord resting in the centre of his soul, filling him with tranquility and joys so continual, “I can scarce contain them.”
Having seen a tree stripped of its leaves on a battlefield in mid-winter, knowing its flowers would reappear, Brother Lawrence was resigned to giving-up pleasure, but also avoided formulaic prayers and devotions, making small personal appeals to God continually through the day (“My God, here I am, all devoted to Thee...”), building a deeply personal friendship, more intimate and casual than any conventional Catholic teaching.
In the clatter of the monastery kitchen, or rolling around in a boat in Burgundy, buying casks of wine for his brothers, the Lord in turn responded, conversing with Brother Lawrence incessantly “in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as His favourite.”
Our thoughts rove and wander, but spiritual freedom need not be a hard struggle: God is as present to road-builders as priests serving at the altar and his love is like a current of water that we try to resist and hinder, but once we put our whole trust in the Lord and make a “total surrender”, believing beyond doubt in His mercy and “perfect goodness”, joy pours like a torrent that has “found its passage.”
Men blaspheme what they do not know. The whole course of things must have for its object the establishment and the greatness of religion. Men must have within them feelings suited to what religion teaches us. And, finally, religion must so be the object and centre to which all things tend, that whoever knows the principles of religion can give an explanation both of the whole nature of man in particular, and of the whole course of the world in general. And on this ground they take occasion to revile the Christian religion, because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in the worship of a God considered as great, powerful, and eternal; and thence they conclude that this religion is not true, because they do not see that all things concur to the establishment of this point, that God does not manifest Himself to men with all the evidence which He could show. The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of the atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer. Jesus Christ is the end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him knows the reason of everything. Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened atheists, but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren. The God of Christians is not simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His providence over the life and fortunes of men to bestow on those who worship Him a long and happy life. But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those who he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself. If the world existed to instruct man of God, his divinity would shine through every part of it in an indisputable manner; but as it exists only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both of their corruption and their redemption, all displays the proofs of these two truths. All appearance indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides Himself. Everything bears this character. For it is not true that all reveals God, and it is not true that all conceals God. But it is at the same time true that He hides Himself from those who tempt Him, and that He reveals Himself to those who seek Him, because men are both unworthy and capable of God; unworthy by their corruption, capable by their original nature. There is nothing on earth that does not show either the wretchedness of man, or the mercy of God; either the weakness of man without God, or the strength of man with God. It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see that they are condemned by their own reason, by which they claimed to condemn the Christian religion. The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion, are not of such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely convincing. But they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others. Recognise, then, the truth of religion in the very obscurity of religion, in the little light we have of it, and in the indifference which we have to knowing it. There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them inexcusable. Vere tu es Deus absconditus.
Men blaspheme what they do not know. The whole course of things must have for its object the establishment and the greatness of religion. Men must have within them feelings suited to what religion teaches us. And, finally, religion must so be the object and centre to which all things tend, that whoever knows the principles of religion can give an explanation both of the whole nature of man in particular, and of the whole course of the world in general. And on this ground they take occasion to revile the Christian religion, because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in the worship of a God considered as great, powerful, and eternal; and thence they conclude that this religion is not true, because they do not see that all things concur to the establishment of this point, that God does not manifest Himself to men with all the evidence which He could show. The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of the atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer. Jesus Christ is the end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him knows the reason of everything. Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened atheists, but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren. The God of Christians is not simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His providence over the life and fortunes of men to bestow on those who worship Him a long and happy life. But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those who he possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself. If the world existed to instruct man of God, his divinity would shine through every part of it in an indisputable manner; but as it exists only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both of their corruption and their redemption, all displays the proofs of these two truths. All appearance indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides Himself. Everything bears this character. For it is not true that all reveals God, and it is not true that all conceals God. But it is at the same time true that He hides Himself from those who tempt Him, and that He reveals Himself to those who seek Him, because men are both unworthy and capable of God; unworthy by their corruption, capable by their original nature. There is nothing on earth that does not show either the wretchedness of man, or the mercy of God; either the weakness of man without God, or the strength of man with God. It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see that they are condemned by their own reason, by which they claimed to condemn the Christian religion. The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion, are not of such a nature that they can be said to be absolutely convincing. But they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is unreasonable to believe them. Thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others. Recognise, then, the truth of religion in the very obscurity of religion, in the little light we have of it, and in the indifference which we have to knowing it. There is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect, and sufficient obscurity to humble them. There is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate, and sufficient clearness to condemn them, and make them inexcusable. Vere tu es Deus absconditus.
• Pensées of mathematician Blaise Pascal
My Father was sitting in the garden, his hands clasped, admiring the wonders of nature. The rays of the setting sun gilded the tops of the tall trees, and the birds chanted their evening prayer. His beautiful face wore a heavenly expression—I could feel that his soul was full of peace. Without a word, I sat down by his side, my eyes already wet with tears. He looked at me with indescribable tenderness, and, pressing me to his heart, said: “What is it, little Queen? Tell me everything.” Then, in order to hide his own emotion, he rose and walked slowly up and down, still holding
me close to him… We walked about for a long time; my heart was lightened, and Papa no longer shed tears. He spoke to me as Saints speak, and showed me some flowers growing in the low stone wall. Picking one of them, he gave it to me, and explained the loving care with which God had made it spring up and grow till now.
We spent six days in visiting the great wonders in Rome, and
on the seventh saw the greatest of all—Leo XIII. I longed for, yet dreaded, that day, for on it depended my vocation. I had received no answer from the Bishop of Bayeux, and so the Holy Father’s permission was my one and only hope... The mere thought made me tremble. We went to the Vatican, and were taken to the Pope’s private chapel. No one uttered a word, but I was firmly determined to speak, when suddenly the Vicar-General, Father Révérony, who was standing at the Pope’s right hand, told us in a loud voice that he absolutely forbade anyone to address His Holiness. My heart beat fast. I turned to Céline, mutely inquiring what I should do. “Speak!” she said. Raising my eyes, which were filled with tears,
I said entreatingly: “Holy Father, I have a great favour to ask you.” The Vicar-General, surprised and displeased, said quickly: “Holy Father, this is a child who desires to become a Carmelite…” “Well, my child,” said His Holiness, “do whatever the Superiors decide.” Clasping my hands, I made a final effort: “Holy Father, if only
you say ‘yes,’ everyone else would agree.”
Extracts from the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
My Father was sitting in the garden, his hands clasped, admiring the wonders of nature. The rays of the setting sun gilded the tops of the tall trees, and the birds chanted their evening prayer. His beautiful face wore a heavenly expression—I could feel that his soul was full of peace. Without a word, I sat down by his side, my eyes already wet with tears. He looked at me with indescribable tenderness, and, pressing me to his heart, said: “What is it, little Queen? Tell me everything.” Then, in order to hide his own emotion, he rose and walked slowly up and down, still holding me close to him… We walked about for a long time; my heart was lightened, and Papa no longer shed tears. He spoke to me as Saints speak, and showed me some flowers growing in the low stone wall. Picking one of them, he gave it to me, and explained the loving care with which God had made it spring up and grow till now.
From the Autobiography
of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
The Most Blessed Virgin Mary is “the first of all believers” and a humble tent of the Word, Pope Leo proclaims, moved only by the Holy Spirit, but Christ is the centre towards which everything converges, “the axis around which time and eternity revolve”
“Eating chocolate every day” can benefit our heart say nuns running a chocolatier at their convent outside Prague »
Salus Populi Romani, Protectress of the Roman People, said to have been painted by Saint Luke; his Gospel has the greatest detail on Mary’s life, thought to be based on her own conversations, and the icon was restored by Pope Francis (1936-2025), who prayed before the painting before every journey and is buried in the same basilica, Santa Maria Maggiore, in a white tomb marked “FRANCISCVS”.
Across the piazza, in Rome’s 15th Rione, the Santa Prassede basilica has some of the first Christian mosaics, dedicated to two daughters of a Roman senator, who became zealous converts after meeting Saint Peter.
Metro: Termini (Line B)
DOCTRINE: Mary’s motherhood is a treasure of the Church. The Church Fathers were concerned with Mary’s divine motherhood (Theotokos), perpetual virginity (Aeiparthenos) and perfect holiness free from sin throughout her life (Panagia). Mary directs us to Christ and asks us to “do whatever he tells you.” From the Incarnation to the cross and the Resurrection, she was united to Christ in a way that far surpasses any other believer. Mary’s incomparable greatness lies in what she has received and her trusting readiness to be overtaken by the Spirit. Her entire being is oriented to the Lord: there is no other glory than God’s glory. Her countenance sings the mystery of the Incarnation. The faithful People of God find in Mary refuge, tenderness, and hope. They see a reflection of the Lord who looks upon us with love and does not condemn us. In her, they see the essential Gospel message. They perceive that Christ is alive.
Santa Maria della Vittoria, a marble basilica in Rome’s 17th Rione known for Bernini’s sensational sculpture of Saint Teresa of Ávila in ecstasy, her habit, a symbol of “chastity and containment”, churned into an ocean of cresting and breaking waves, according to art critic Simon Schama, seeing her “helpless dissolution into liquid bliss.”
Known for discipline and obedience, beautiful writing on her love of Christ and ecstatic raptures, Santa Teresa de Jesús aimed to live in complete union with her heavenly spouse, opening 16 Carmelite convents in Spain, instructing her novices that it was better to say one prayer thoughtfully, than fifty without feeling.
Metro: Repubblica (Line A)
At the moment of Communion, when Jesus had entered our hearts, I heard sobs on all sides. I did not shed a tear, but as I
led the way to the cloister door my heart beat so violently that
I wondered if I were going to die. Oh, the agony of that moment! One must have experienced it in order to understand. I embraced all my dear ones and knelt for my Father's blessing. He, too, knelt down and blessed me through his tears. It was a sight to gladden the Angels, this old man giving his child to God while she was yet in the springtime of life. At length the doors of the Carmel closed upon me… At last my desires were realised, and I cannot describe the deep sweet peace which filled my soul —not even the lightest breeze ruffled the tranquil waters on which my little barque sailed… and I kept saying: “Now I am here for ever.”
Then, too, dear Mother, Our Lord allowed you, unconsciously,
to treat me very severely. You found fault with me whenever you met me. I remember once I had left a cobweb in the cloister, and you said to me before the whole community: “It is easy to see
that our cloisters are swept by a child of fifteen. It is disgraceful!” On the rare occasions when I spent an hour with you for spiritual direction, you seemed to be scolding me nearly all the time, and what pained me most of all was that I did not see how to correct my faults: for instance, our Mistress used to send me every afternoon at half-past four to weed the garden. This was a real penance, the more so, dear Mother, because I was almost sure to meet you on the way, and once you remarked: “Really, this child does absolutely nothing. What are we to think of a novice who must have a walk every day?” And yet, dear Mother, how grateful I am to you for giving me such a sound and valuable training. It was an inestimable grace. What should I have become, if, as the world outside believed, I had been but the pet of the Community? Perhaps, instead of seeing Our Lord in the person of my superiors, my heart, which had been so carefully guarded in the world, would have been ensnared by human affection in the cloister. Happily, your motherly prudence saved me from such a disaster.
Extracts from the Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
At the moment of Communion, when Jesus had entered our hearts, I heard sobs on all sides. I did not shed a tear, but as I led the way to the cloister door my heart beat so violently that I wondered if I were going to die. Oh, the agony of that moment! One must have experienced it in order to understand. I embraced all my dear ones and knelt for my Father's blessing. He, too, knelt down and blessed me through his tears. It was a sight to gladden the Angels, this old man giving his child to God while she was yet in the springtime of life. At length the doors of the Carmel closed upon me… At last my desires were realised, and I cannot describe the deep sweet peace which filled my soul —not even the lightest breeze ruffled the tranquil waters on which my little barque sailed… and I kept saying: “Now I am here for ever.”
From the Autobiography
of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
With electric gearing customised in a small factory in Austria, Pope Leo’s open-top Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon (registration: “SCV1”) can be recharged in half an hour
Alessia Pierdomenico © Shutterstock
“Your gold and silver have rusted,” warns the Letter of James, “their rust will be evidence against you and it will eat your flesh like fire... Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord.”
This is the Bible’s call to those living in luxury and idle pleasure, according to Pope Leo’s first letter to the faithful, Dilexi Te. For Saint Ambrose (c.339 to 397), Bishop of Milan, charity was less a paternal gesture than justice restored. “Do not honour Christ’s body here in church with silk fabrics,” preached John Chrysostom (347 to 407), Archbishop of Constantinople, “while he himself dies of hunger in the person of the poor.”
Clare of Assisi (1194 to 1253) also chose barefooted poverty over papal privileges, teaching her sisters to recognise Christ as their only inheritance, letting nothing obscure their communion with him. From his birth in a humble manger, taken to the Temple with two turtledoves, the offering of the lowly, God lived on earth as an itinerant teacher, his poverty and precariousness a sign of his deep spiritual bond to his Father and trust in providence to the end.
Vatican City is now 100% powered by renewable energy, with solar panels on the museum roof and a €100m solar farm just outside Rome, joining Ethiopia and the D.R.C. as the world’s greenest countries
Cardinal
Krajewski
Alessia Pierdomenico Shutterstock
When he is not collecting cash for Gaza or driving over the border into Ukraine, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski has been opening free laundries for the homeless in Sicily and Turin. “Sell your desk,” Pope Francis once suggested. “You don't need it... Go out and look for the poor”
lvivadm © wikipedia
2013
“If we look down to Earth from the heights of heaven,” wrote the Greek pagan Celsus, “would there really be any difference between our activities and those of the ants and bees?” Pope Leo’s first letter to the faithful, Dilexi Te, was originally drafted by his predecessor, just as Pope Francis took-up a paper begun by Pope Benedict XVI: Lumen Fidei, the light of faith, is a monumental meditation on radiance, love and the futility of non-belief. As two poles of the Church, the lofty scholarship of Benedict and the all-spanning forgiveness of Francis lift high the vast tent of human experience, from wandering in Biblical deserts through the lament of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 to 1778) to the doubts of Dostoyevsky (1821 to 1881) and our present crises of godless individualism.
God is first removed from our everyday lives and put on a different level, consigned to the far beyond. Without his presence, human life is no longer precious and man is cast adrift in nature, renouncing his responsibilities, or assuming the role of a judge, with unlimited power to adjust his surroundings. “Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants.”
Even then, any heart can be easily moved by the beauty and grandeur of life, glimpsing the entire movement of the cosmos towards its fulfilment. Stepping away from our selfish and enclosed egos, we quickly find and recognise Christ, enlarging our lives into a plan infinitely bigger than our own undertakings. And faith is even more than a dialogue between the divine Father and a believing Son. As we draw nearer our Creator, our humanity is not dissolved in the immensity of his light, as a star is engulfed by the dawn, but shines more brightly, like a mirror.
Seeing things as Jesus sees them, with his own eyes, we come to share in Christ’s mind. Perceiving its deepest meaning, we see how God loves the world, constantly guiding it towards himself, encouraging us to live with ever-greater commitment and intensity as we are taken-up in the great pilgrimage of the Church through time, purifying all things, bringing them to their finest expression, assimilating everything it meets. This almost inexpressible communion with the divine reaches “the core of all being, the inmost secret of all reality.”
Cattedrale di Monreale in Sicily, an early morning hike through the alleys of Palermo from the summer palace of King William the Good (1153 to 1189), who went hunting and fell asleep under a tree when the Holy Virgin appeared; clearing the ground to build a cathedral, he found a trove of gold coins
Andreas Zerndl © Shutterstock
Cattedrale di Monreale in Sicily
Built by King of Sicily, William the Good
Out hunting when the Holy Virgin appeared
Clearing the ground, found stash of coins
Andreas Zerndl © Shutterstock
Donald Trump showing his famous zeal, using tear gas and riot police to have his photo taken at his church in D.C.; every U.S. president in history has attended Saint John’s on 16th Street since it was built in 1816
Melania Trump, known as “The Princess of Slovenia” and the first Catholic First Lady since Jackie Kennedy, clutched her pearl white Rosary prayer beads instead of a bouquet at her Palm Beach wedding in 2005 and flew them to the Vatican to be blessed by Pope Francis on Trump’s first international tour as U.S. president, leaving pink and white roses for the Madonna. She was “humbled by the honour,” she wrote, “Blessings to all.”
A monolithic monument to God, chiselled into rock, cast in concrete, and enshrined in the Museum of Modern Art »
The Assumption of Mary on Lake Bled, Slovenia (“Cerkev Marijinega Vnebovzetja”), with 99 steps from boats at the quay to the wishing bell and beautifully-carved, golden altars dedicated to Mary Magdalene, Saint Blaise and the Archangels, illuminating the whole church (8.30am Mass on New Year’s Day)
Robbie Smith 1 © Shutterstock
The Assumption of Mary in Slovenia
99 steps from the quay to the wishing bell
Golden altars dedicated to the Archangels
8.30am Mass on New Year’s Day
Robbie Smith 1 © Shutterstock
1887
Life of Pope Leo XIII
(1810 to 1903), by Fr.
Bernard O’Reilly
After a long night at his desk and private prayers in his chapel, Pope Leo XIII was ready for Mass, then his usual breakfast, black coffee and a bread roll, going into his study to confront the correspondence of his secretaries, beseeching China’s Emperor with the “brotherly love” of Christ and urging Tsar Alexander to show mercy to his serfs, driven up to their waists through half-frozen rivers on their way to a Russian church.
Having once ruled huge territories, Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pius IX (1792 to 1878), was left only with the Vatican gardens and his very life hovering on the borders of eternal peace, whilst the bands of Garibaldi raided towns and released prisoners, hailed as heroes by the American press: “Will the Piedmontese government not take possession of the Vatican?” clamoured the ocean telegraph: “Will they, can they, allow the cardinals to assemble freely in conclave and elect a successor?”
As ballots were drawn out of a chalice, Cardinal Pecci’s gentle face went pale with grief. He had been a prelate near Naples, using papal troops to storm castles used as smuggling strongholds, then the ambassador to Belgium, blessing the Queen’s children, and Bishop of Perugia, building new roads, and his name was read aloud 38 times, tears by now on his cheeks. Canopies above the chairs of every cardinal, to denote their shared sovereignty, were instantly lowered, and bells rang-out from every church in Rome.
German princes deeply mistrusted the “pretension” of papal infallibility, which threatened to raise the power of the pontiff, usurping their sovereign deeds, and Italy’s prime minister could at any moment put the new pope into a carriage, yet Leo was as “unmoved as an antique statue”, so calm that when a German warship planted its flag on an island once claimed by Spain, her pride so aroused that the people of Madrid sacked the palace of the German ambassador, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck turned to the Vatican and the dispute was settled in less than a month. Preserving peace, Pope Leo XIII told his cardinals, was “so much in keeping” with the very nature of the Church.
Cardinal Zuppi has negotiated with Kurdish rebels, the U.S. president and Russia’s Orthodox Church. Born in Rome, he is a citizen of Mozambique, having mediated a peace deal for the country. “It is not force that rules the world,” he told pilgrims in Assisi, “let us listen to the message of peace.”
Francesco Pierantoni © Flickr
Cardinal Zuppi Archbishop of Bologna
One of the Vatican’s peace negotiators
Born in Rome, now citizen of Mozambique
Ongoing discussions with Chinese officials
Francesco Pierantoni © Flickr
Seoul 2027: countdown to World Youth Day »
“Honey melons hang on bitter vines,” Xi Jinping told businessmen and politicians at the Davos ski resort. “In a philosophical sense, nothing is perfect in the world,” China’s president explained. “It is true that economic globalization has created new problems,” but one should not “retreat to the harbor when encountering a storm, for this will never get us to the other shore of the ocean.”
Even for experienced diplomats, pulling-out of the crushing traffic in Beijing, sweeping into the tranquil gardens of Xi’s leadership compound, his government and its thinking is as impenetrable as the private corridors of the Holy See. “A big country should be as inclusive as the lower reaches of a river,” Xi announced in Germany. “Governing a big country is as delicate as frying small fish,” he told a press conference in Africa.
Surrounded by communist party officials with jet-black shoes and perfectly-polished hair, some see these speeches as blatant propaganda, concealing his “strike-hard” authoritarianism in fuzzy aphorisms. His father, Xi Zhongxun (1913 to 2002), was one of Chairman Mao’s closest comrades, leading troops out of China’s mountains, forcing the American-backed nationalists to retreat to Taiwan. Xi Senior led the party’s personnel department, then propaganda, but in the bitter struggles of the 1960s, was accused of disloyalty.
“You deserve to be shot a hundred times,” his son was told. “I thought there was no difference between being shot once and being shot a hundred times. Why should I be afraid of that threat?” The pressure on his family was so intense, some did not survive, and at 15, Xi Junior volunteered to go to Liangjiahe village in the Yellow Earth region, where the mythical Yellow Emperor forged Chinese civilisation 5,000 years ago. A revolution is not a dinner party, Mao explained; China’s educated princelings needed to be re-educated by peasants in the countryside.
Sleeping on a mattress infested with insects, Xi says he was lost and indecisive when he left Beijing, and was caught wasting food. “It was a misunderstanding really... I had kept the bread too long, it was dry. And when I was going through my bag, I found some, and so I put it aside to feed to the dogs that used to come to my door.” The story spread throughout the county and after three months, Xi returned to Beijing, where he was arrested and put to work, digging trenches for water pipes, but took his family’s advice to return to the mountains and after seven years cutting hay, taking sheep out to pasture, carrying 200-jin bales of wheat up a mountain track in the rain (100 kilos), he knew every problem could be solved. “The locals were good to me, for I was in my father’s former military base... many people protected me, and taught me how to cope, which made me stronger.”
Xi’s application to join the communist party was continually rejected. “Upstairs they all say that you are a child that needs to be educated,” he was told. “Where is the verdict against my father,” he eventually complained, “I am a young man who wants to build a career. What is the problem with that?” Soon known as a tireless official, visiting poor regions, he married the daughter of China’s diplomat to Great Britain, negotiating the handover of Hong Kong, but Xi focused on rural postings, she moved to the UK, and he met his second wife, singer Peng Liyuan.
Across the straits from Taiwan, smuggling and construction were booming in Fujian province, officials had authority to approve projects and Xi commissioned a report into corrupt spending, turning down apartments and offers of private trains. With low wages and double-digit growth, multinational companies were building factories along the Yangtze and Xi wrote hundreds of newspaper articles, calling-out bribes, far more than senior party leaders at the time. “You need to have the moral standing of an official,” he wrote under a pseudonym. “Your constant thought needs to be, what can I do for the party. What will my legacy be?”
Consolidating China’s territory as the world’s biggest economy looks to be his current trajectory, encircling Taiwan with a rapidly-built navy, having crushed independence movements in Tibet and Xinjiang, where a million innocent Uyghurs are thought to be held as detainees. Smiling at state banquets, drinking strong spirits, Xi had the panache and charisma to glide through the echelons of China’s leadership without seeming a threat to rivals. He has “enormous emotional stability”, Singapore’s prime minister says. Leaked party memos, such as ‘Document 9’, reveal his steely streak, with Putin-style warnings against the manoeuvres of Western groups to destabilise China’s dream. “Your ‘democracy’ comes from ancient Greece,” he told the Greek Prime Minister. “We have our own tradition.”
Confucius does not need the acknowledgement of Plato, one Chinese professor explains, just as Chinese regulators do not need the approval of the US Federal Reserve. Splitting China’s history by its upheavals, ignoring the continuity of its people, Western commentators dismiss televised confessions as scripted and inhumane, the darkest side of totalitarianism, but Xi Jinping says self-criticism is “good medicine” that “cures our illnesses.”
He has tightened rules for officials: there can be no welcome banner at factories and no flowers, and is scathing of “formalism”, communist-speak for writing reports, to convene more meetings. “They do not want to visit difficult regions,” says the chairman, president and general-secretary of the world’s biggest bureaucracy. “Their sole objective is to ingratiate themselves with their superiors… one ceremony after another.” His crackdowns have taken in senior military leaders, China’s head of counter-intelligence and even the head of Interpol, jailed for 13 years. Xi’s half-brother meanwhile died of a sudden heart attack in his fifties.
Pronounced “sh-yee gin ping”, meaning close-to-peace, China’s president weathers these storms in the heartfelt belief that the strength of China’s people, the “sons and daughters” of a belittled regime, has been borne-out over time. “The spirit of Lei Feng is eternal,” he told Chinese troops, remembering a selfless soldier idolised by Mao’s propaganda machine. “You must be like seeds sown in the Nation’s earth,” comments eerily similar to Pope Leo’s address to huge crowds at a recent “Jubilee of Youth”. A better world is possible, promised the supreme leader of 1.4 billion people, “a world of fraternity and friendship… You will be seeds of hope where you live.”
With more than 100 embassies around the world, Vatican diplomats are quietly hoping to dismantle the world’s nuclear weapons. Lasting peace, they insist, will rest more soundly on a bedrock of trust and goodwill. Nothing compares to the U.N. in Geneva, but the Holy See’s observer, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, says he learnt patience and resilience in the Congo, as ambassador during Pope Francis’ tour of the country, and helped negotiate a landmark deal in Colombia, disarming 12,000 rebels, turning their group into a peaceful political party, handing over all weapons.
Dnalor 01 © wikipedia
Life of Pope Leo XIV: “A person at peace…”
Born in Chicago
14th September 1955
“Robert Francis Prevost”, born in the Mercy Hospital, Chicago. His father Louis was a U.S. Navy veteran, whilst his mother Mildred sent the children to church before school at 6.30 a.m. each morning, explaining Jesus is “your best friend”, and Mass is the “way to find that friend”
Ordained Priest
10th September 1981
Re-enacting Mass at home, “Rob” became an altar boy and always wanted to be a priest. Described by nuns as “calm and steady… a person at peace with himself”, he taught maths while studying Divinity and joined the Augustinians in Missouri, training for the priesthood
Prior of Seminary
1988 to 1998
Sent to Rome to study Canon Law, joining aid missions to Peru, leading its seminary in Trujillo for 10 years, travelling by mule to remote regions, finding Peruvians to join the priesthood
Leads Augustinians
2001 to 2013
Elected to lead the Augustinians as their Prior-General in Rome, travelling to its missions around the world, serving two six-year terms
Bishop of Chiclayo
2015 to 2023
He was given a Peruvian passport and used to mend his own motorcar as Bishop of Chiclayo in its stunning Saint Mary’s Cathedral and Prevost still describes it as “my beloved diocese”
Elected Pope
2025
Brought back to Rome and made cardinal, shortlisting bishops for Pope Francis, making him familiar to other cardinals at the conclave in 2025. Prevost prays the Rosary at midday, wears an Apple smartwatch and is the first Pope to send his own emails
★ ★ ★ ★
François Bougon writes for Mediapart. He lived in Beijing as a reporter for Agence France-Presse and was a correspondent for Le Monde
★ ★ ★
Kerry Brown was first secretary in the U.K. embassy in Beijing. He has worked with British institute, Chatham House, and as a professor at Sydney University and King’s College in London
Also: We Need to Talk About Xi, Michael Dillon
The white “zucchetto” cap given to the Pope is thought to be made by Italian tailor Gammarelli
Elected Pope
2025
Brought back to Rome and made cardinal, shortlisting bishops for Pope Francis, making him familiar to other cardinals at the conclave in 2025. Prevost prays the Rosary at midday, wears an Apple smartwatch and is the first Pope to send his own emails
Born in Chicago
14th September 1955
“Robert Francis Prevost”, born in the Mercy Hospital, Chicago. His father Louis was a U.S. Navy veteran, whilst his mother Mildred sent the children to church before school at 6.30 a.m. each morning, explaining Jesus is “your best friend”, and Mass is the “way to find that friend”
Ordained Priest
10th September 1981
Re-enacting Mass at home, “Rob” became an altar boy and always wanted to be a priest. Described by nuns as “calm and steady… a person at peace with himself”, he taught maths while studying Divinity and joined the Augustinians in Missouri, training for the priesthood
Leads Augustinians
2001 to 2013
Elected to lead the Augustinians as their Prior-General in Rome, travelling to its missions around the world, serving two six-year terms
Prior of Seminary
1988 to 1998
Sent to Rome to study Canon Law, joining aid missions to Peru, leading its seminary in Trujillo for 10 years, travelling by mule to remote regions, finding Peruvians to join the priesthood
Bishop of Chiclayo
2015 to 2023
He was given a Peruvian passport and used to mend his own motorcar as Bishop of Chiclayo in its stunning Saint Mary’s Cathedral and Prevost still describes it as “my beloved diocese”
CONVENT CLASSICS
CONVENT CLASSICS
19461959
19611964
1972
19651966
POPE LEO XIV has made Christian unity a key theme of his papacy, praying with King Charles III in the Sistine Chapel and now Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul. They all recite the same Creed (“I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth…), its original Greek wording negotiated over three months at a council convened by Emperor Constantine (272-337) to stop the Roman Empire breaking-up, and in 2025, all Churches celebrated Easter on the same day, but it was an astrological coincidence and they are still aiming for full communion, sharing the same Eucharist from Ethiopia to England and Syria to Scandinavia, following God’s plan to gather all people in Christ. “Every factor of division can be transcended and overcome,” wrote Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), “an immense task, which we cannot refuse.”
“Holy Mary, woman of conviviality, nourish in our Churches the desire for communion. Help them overcome internal divisions, intervene when the demon of discord creeps into their midst, extinguish the fires of factionalism, reconcile mutual disputes, defuse their rivalries, stop them when they decide to go their own way.”
Prayer of Italian bishop Antonio Bello (“Don Tonino”, 1935-1993)
Shutterstock © Marco Iacobucci Epp
ISTANBUL
Aziz Antuan is a cherished Catholic Church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua on the bustling İstiklal Avenue keeping Turkish lawyers busy; Patriarch Bartholomew once worked in his father’s barber shop, did Turkish national service and has led the Orthodox Church globally for more than three decades, and even he struggles to keep hold of once Christian buildings, turned into museums, then mosques.
Outside is a statue of “The Turkish Pope”: Saint John XXIII (1881-1963) was Italian, but preached here serving as a diplomat, watching fishermen on the Bosporus at one in the morning from the window of a Jesuit house, working all night with small boats and their torches lit in the pouring rain. “Imitate the fishermen,” he wrote, “this is our serious and sacred duty.”
Metro: Şişhane (M2 Line)
Marco Iacobucci Epp Shutterstock
CONVENT CLASSICS
CONVENT CLASSICS
19922004
19891986“Entering a cinema is like crossing a threshold. In the darkness and silence, vision becomes sharper, the heart opens up and the mind becomes receptive to things not yet imagined. Cinema is much more than just a screen; it is an intersection of desires, memories and questions. It is a sensory journey in which light pierces the darkness and words meet silence. As the plot unfolds, our imagination broadens and even pain can find new meaning.”POPE LEO XIV• Pope Leo XIV on the tomb of Christ
The Son of God lies in the tomb. But this absence is not emptiness: it is expectation, a restrained fullness, a promise kept in the dark. It is the day of the great silence, in which the sky seems mute and the earth immobile, but it is precisely there that the deepest mystery of the Christian faith is fulfilled. After the six days of creation, God rests. Now, the Son too rests. This rest is the seal on the completed task; it is the confirmation that what should have been done has truly been accomplished. It is a repose filled with the hidden presence of the Lord. We struggle to stop and rest. We live as if life were never enough. We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn. Life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we take leave of what we have been able to do. In the tomb, Jesus, the living Word of the Father, is silent. God is not afraid of the passing time, because he is also the God of waiting. Even our pauses, emptiness, barren moments, can become the womb of resurrection. Every silence that is welcomed can be the premise of a new Word. Every suspended time can become a time of grace, if we offer it to God. Jesus, buried in the ground, is the meek face of a God who does not occupy all space. He is the God who lets things be done, who withdraws to leave us freedom, even when everything seems to be over. And we, on that suspended Sabbath, learn that we do not have to hurry to rise again; first we must welcome the silence, let ourselves be embraced by limitation. We seek immediate solutions. But God works in the slow time of trust. The Sabbath of the burial thus becomes the womb from which an invincible light, that of Easter, can spring forth.
The Son of God lies in the tomb. But this absence is not emptiness: it is expectation, a restrained fullness, a promise kept in the dark. It is the day of the great silence, in which the sky seems mute and the earth immobile, but it is precisely there that the deepest mystery of the Christian faith is fulfilled. After the six days of creation, God rests. Now, the Son too rests. This rest is the seal on the completed task; it is the confirmation that what should have been done has truly been accomplished. It is a repose filled with the hidden presence of the Lord. We struggle to stop and rest. We live as if life were never enough. We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn. Life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we take leave of what we have been able to do. In the tomb, Jesus, the living Word of the Father, is silent. God is not afraid of the passing time, because he is also the God of waiting. Even our pauses, emptiness, barren moments, can become the womb of resurrection. Every silence that is welcomed can be the premise of a new Word. Every suspended time can become a time of grace, if we offer it to God. Jesus, buried in the ground, is the meek face of a God who does not occupy all space. He is the God who lets things be done, who withdraws to leave us freedom, even when everything seems to be over. And we, on that suspended Sabbath, learn that we do not have to hurry to rise again; first we must welcome the silence, let ourselves be embraced by limitation. We seek immediate solutions. But God works in the slow time of trust. The Sabbath of the burial thus becomes the womb from which an invincible light, that of Easter, can spring forth.